Thursday, 28 March 2024
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Active Travel England guides councils toward “constrained” infrastructure cash

Active Travel England has begun sending all England’s councils guidance on how to plan, obtain funding and build quality infrastructure as part of the ambition to see 50% of short trips undertaken either walking or cycling by 2050.

Writing today on the long road ahead, Active Travel England has asked councils to begin grading themselves against benchmarks it has created to measure “local leadership, supportive transport policy and their track record on delivery.”

Pairing the self-assessment with track record and performance data already held by the Department for Transport used to inform current funding allocations, the newly-formed body will now rank authorities on a grade of one to four, four being the metric for high levels of leadership, ambitions and delivery. The active travel org expects most councils at the present time to rank at one out of four, though reassessments will be undertaken on an annual basis in order that progress is fairly measured.

In a statement published this morning Active Travel England wrote: “Getting high-quality projects delivered can be difficult and, to ensure we do this well, we need to provide the majority of infrastructure funding to those authorities that are the most willing and capable of delivering. Ultimately, the best use of our funding is to direct resources to councils that are ready to deliver now and to provide training and support to those that want to improve so that they are in a position to deliver high-quality projects as soon as possible.”

The period for inviting bids from local authorities will begin next month and around £500 million of grant funding forms the budget for the period from 2022/23 to 2024/25. In the first period the active travel org is to tread lightly until it gets a feeling for nationwide ambition and ability to deliver; that means that 2022/23 funding worth only £30 million is to be released.

“We want authorities that are willing to do ambitious, LTN 1/20-compliant schemes to receive funding, though funding constraints mean we will have to prioritise,” writes the self assessment document’s opener.

Unfortunately this is likely to mean that authorities with political leaders hostile to cycling may fall quickly behind, until such a time that leadership can demonstrate a changed willingness to meet standards.

With central Government’s two political leadership candidates currently vying to out-do one another on lowering climate change ambitions, there also remains a chance that Active Travel England could yet be further hampered in its efforts. It has previously been pointed out that without Andrew Gilligan (Boris Johnson’s right hand man credited with much of the UK’s cycling policy to date), the Conservative party may veer sharply away from current backing for active mobility.

Local Authorities are now asked to submit an “honest” assessment inside the next three weeks, submitting no later than 12pm on Monday 22nd of August and 12pm Friday 26th of August for MCA-level returns. Returns should be arranged with the Senior Responsible Officer for the council’s cycling and walking programme.

Find out more on the full document, found here.

active travel england