Comprehensive Spending Review

The UK government is currently undertaking its first comprehensive spending review since 2021. If active travel is to secure long term funding commitments in England, it needs to be specifically included in this as it will set department budgets for the next few years.

Please consider writing to your MP asking that they request the government to allocate long-term investment to cycling and walking as part of the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. To make this easy Cycling UK have set up a standard letter that can be modified .

Anti-cycling bad for UK’s health

Based on an article in the Guardian

Chris Boardman, who leads Active Travel England (ATE), has asserted that public health is being directly harmed by anti-cycling coverage in parts of the media.

Whilst this culture war has abated since the election, Boardman says that pushing for better walking and cycling routes remained “very politically noisy”, which could particularly put off local politicians. He is openly angry about what he sees as misleading media coverage that presents cyclists as reckless and dangerous when, in a statistic he uses regularly, more Britons are killed by cows or lightning every year than by bikes.

“At the moment we have a very consistent, non-evidence-based, negative narrative to stop any change. It is stopping people wanting to put their heads up and do difficult things,” he said in an interview. “Just 211 miles from here [in the Netherlands], 66% of kids do get around under their own steam, and our children are being denied that.”

The Labour government has pledged to tackle the underlying causes of preventable ill-health, including inactive lifestyles and weight, and Chris is clear that travel has to be part of this: “From a health point of view, active travel is how you reach a nation – you change the way people move around every day. That’s the only way you’re going to really help”.