The Department for Transport (DfT) asked local authorities to bid for monies put aside for Active Travel. Bids were invited that showed ambitious plans to improve cycling and walking. After assessing the proposals submitted the DfT have now announced the allocation of the £161m available in tranche 3 of the funding.
Neither Derby City Council nor Derbyshire County Council were successful in obtaining any of this round of funding.
Other Councils that have been successful include Nottingham (£2.2m), Nottinghamshire (£4.7m), Leicester (£2.2m) and Gloucestershire (£14.2m). This shows that reasonably significant monies are available for sufficiently bold schemes.
UPDATE: The City Council decided to not apply for tranche 3 funding as they were already working on delivering tranche 2 schemes, had only a short time to make the application, and felt that schemes that could be included in the bid were already being covered by previously successful Transforming Cities funding (discussed by Councillor Hassall at 20th July 2022 Council meeting).
For the county, the majority of the funding requested was for creating the Little Eaton Branch Line – to convert the old bed of the railway between Little Eaton towards Ilkeston (I believe initially as far as Rawson Green near Denby). Unfortunately this was also judged to be unsuitable for funding.
The DfT have been clear that they expect to see schemes that “reallocate road space to cycling and walking” and have also implied that a failure to submit acceptable schemes is likely to lead to reduced future funding for the Councils for both active travel and for the wider transport budget.
Cycling UK have analysed and commented on the funding announcement.
Hopefully this will be a wake up call for senior leaders in the local Councils to push for the creation of significant plans to support cycling and walking and achieve what the Government calls a Gear Change.
The DfT told councils who removed emergency active travel schemes (those implemented with tranche 1 money) that they would not get money in the next round. Derby City removed Uttoxeter Road and London Road schemes despite being urged by myself and others, through Derby Cycling Group, to “improve not remove” the schemes in question, in response to criticism of them. The city council were told they should consult widely and properly on all ideas before submitting final designs, but their response has been to cancel and abandon their stakeholder group, the Active Travel Forum. Because we have no stakeholder contact we have not been able to ask if the city council received a letter from the DfT about curtailment of future funding due to these events. Maybe these could be factors in a lack of investment, rather than (or as well as) unambitious designs?