2025 Active Travel England Schemes

[mjr]

As seen on TV this morning:

Almost £300m to gear up new walking, wheeling and cycling schemes | Active Travel England – https://www.activetravelengland.gov...gear-new-walking-wheeling-and-cycling-schemes

Some have pointed out that this is still less than even one road project. It works out to £5.49 per person, so still needs a lot of local funding adding to hit the recommended £20 per person per year. I don't know yet how it's split across areas and time, either.

 

[Arjimlad]

The crumbs which drop from the banqueting table of motor transport.

 

[Emanresu]

As long as they fix the bl**dy potholes I don’t mind.

 

[mjr]

As long as they fix the bl**dy potholes I don’t mind.

I'm sure crap councils will still find ways to misuse it on pothole filling, as before, such as by resurfacing a half mile of A road around a toucan crossing.

It cuts both ways, though. Norfolk was given £15m grant to fix potholes, but only £1.7m is actually going to fix them, according to (paywall-blocker needed) Revealed: How extra £15m of Norfolk pothole cash will be spent
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/24904257.norfolk-council-reveals-will-spend-15m-pothole-cash/?ref=rss with the rest going on other maintenance.

 

[Drago]

And any infrastructure that does get built by accident is liable to be poorly designed and even more poorly maintained.

In a carncil meeting last week the head of the unitary authority was whittling on about active travel ambitions for the council, and had no sensible answer when I asked;

"how about maintaining the stuff we already have first? What's the point of active travel infrastructure when the highways authority (ie, Kier Ltd) put a cycle route blocked by overgrown bushes onto a 26 week schedule for rectification?"

You can be sure that when Kier's shareholders want their dividends they don't have to wait 26 weeks for them.

In short, I'm not terribly positive about the news.

 

[mjr]

In a carncil meeting last week the head of the unitary authority was whittling on about active travel ambitions for the council, and had no sensible answer when I asked;

"how about maintaining the stuff we already have first? What's the point of active travel infrastructure when the highways authority (ie, Kier Ltd) put a cycle route blocked by overgrown bushes onto a 26 week schedule for rectification?"

What meeting was that, then? I tried to find it to see the nonsense reply, but there was nothing obvious on the two Poshshire council calendars (I'm not sure where the inner border is now).

But thank you for asking. It's only by challenging the nonsense that it ever changes. If it was truly awful and in a videoed meeting, I'd publicise it a bit online, see if a journalist might pick at it, see if Active Travel England will note it for their next assessment round. I doubt Mr Boardman wants to be funding stuff that will be left to rot.

 

[Psamathe]

Cynic in me thinks "Almost £300m" is a lot of white paint to put close to debris filled gutters.

But non-cynical me does not appreciate the costs of cycle infrastructure eg how much does it cost to build a 2-way cycle track beside a road (given the space and land is available and already owned by state)? eg per mile. How much is ongoing maintenance?

In France I note with disappointment that some Voie Verts in some departments are now getting overgrown as grass and weeds have started establishing themselves over ever more of the path edges migrating and narrowing the track. Some departments are maintaining, others are not and the result portions will deteriorate to make the initial investment building it wasted money.

Ian

 

[wiggydiggy]

Though I'm grateful for any money, if my maths are right this isn't actually a new £300m, but just an extra £100m on top of £200m promised 2 years ago (that itself was cut to £100m shortly after).

1. February 2023 - £200m announced as available
2. March 2023 - That amount cut to £100m
   1. “A backward move” – Government slashes active travel budget for England
3. February 2025 - £300m annouced as available

How much of the £100m from 2 years ago has been spent, has anyone got any examples?

 

[mjr]

Norfolk's press release implies that this is a sort-of restoration of the cut to the current financial year, and new funding for the 2025-26 year.

Example projects near me that I can think of are underwhelming and incomplete, to put it mildly, but I guess we always remember the irritations more vividly than the successes that just work, as the irritations take up more of our time.

 

[mjr]

Cynic in me thinks "Almost £300m" is a lot of white paint to put close to debris filled gutters.

Yeah, they shouldn't do that else ATE says it will recover the funding. I'm still not aware of anywhere they've actually carried out the threat yet, though.

But non-cynical me does not appreciate the costs of cycle infrastructure eg how much does it cost to build a 2-way cycle track beside a road (given the space and land is available and already owned by state)? eg per mile. How much is ongoing maintenance?

It varies wildly. I think I've seen £100k per mile mentioned as typical a decade ago. Heaven knows what oil prices have done to tarmac prices now, and we still don't widely use woodcrete or smooth pavers. I know one packed-stone route was built for about £30k per mile, on a well-drained hillside with local quarries, but that's exceptional. In 2016, The Ranty Highwayman worked out that the central core of London Cycleway 3 cost £2.6m per mile. The crude headline figure for the notorious Norwich Cathedral paved cycleway cock-up equated to £15.5m per mile.

So, somewhere between £30k and £15.5m per mile.

Ongoing maintenance is difficult to say because most of it gets lost as noise in among other highways maintenance: it's cutting hedges differently but they'd have needed cutting anyway; it's less veg to cut in some places; it's more tarmac to sweep in others.

 

[Drago]

What meeting was that, then? I tried to find it to see the nonsense reply, but there was nothing obvious on the two Poshshire council calendars (I'm not sure where the inner border is now).

But thank you for asking. It's only by challenging the nonsense that it ever changes. If it was truly awful and in a videoed meeting, I'd publicise it a bit online, see if a journalist might pick at it, see if Active Travel England will note it for their next assessment round. I doubt Mr Boardman wants to be funding stuff that will be left to rot.

It was a big meeting last week for parish councillors to get talked at by some big nobs from the unitary authority. As the parish councillor that rides or walks to meetings I volunteered to represent Crinkly Bottom PC. I think about 60 councillors from our half of the county were there, and at 56 (57 later this month) I was far and away the youngest.

TBH it was a waste of time. Lots of vague aspiration, zero talk of the means by which they'll deliver any of it, a time-limited target (2030) but no time-measured milestones during delivery, very lacking in anything remotely substantive. It was, in essence, case of "weremgoing to do this by then." And that was it.

The idea of consulting with users before unleashing a planner that hasn't ridden a bike in 40 year was a alien concept to them - if they'd been wearing monocles they'd have all dropped them when I mentioned that. I'm not sure if it belies an arrogance or ignorance.

 

[mjr]

The idea of consulting with users before unleashing a planner that hasn't ridden a bike in 40 year was a alien concept to them - if they'd been wearing monocles they'd have all dropped them when I mentioned that. I'm not sure if it belies an arrogance or ignorance.

That's a bit of a surprise. We don't usually have problems getting councils to consult cyclists. The problem is more often that the response to the consultation is usually to tell the cyclists why they're wrong and why Active Travel England's advice doesn't apply to their oh so special scheme to put a cycleway along a simple A road!

 

[Drago]

Same problem here.

BITD as one of the forces two cycle trainers I protested against the predecessor council's plans for cycle lanes along Billing Road, right in the door one (or death zone is it's called on the professional syllabus.)

The presumably untrained and non cycling infrastructure planners took no notice and did it anyway, and after a few painful doorings that made the local media no one rides in them any more.

Do it properly, or don't bother.