12/08/2013 – There is an update to this post with more information here.
Tomorrow we’ll see the winning bids for the Cycle City Ambition Grants and Cycling in National Parks grants announced. From the press stories it’s not clear that £42m of this was already announced back in January 2013.
“PM to pump record £80m into cycling
The prime minister will reveal plans to turn three big urban areas into cycling cities as well as investing in a network of bike lanes in two rural areas”
The Times on Sunday, 11/08/2013
The story in The Times describes the Cycle City Ambition and National Parks Cycling grants which were announced in the last “record investment in cycling” in January 2013.
The Times reports that we’ll see investment of £80m, however these two funds only represent £42m of government funding. What is the remaining £38m?
- Is it local contribution? For instance when Norman Baker has included local contribution when discussing the Dangerous Junction Fund figures.
- An expansion to these two funds? Like we’ve seen with the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, the Community Linking Placed Fund and the Dangerous Junctions Fund in the past.
- Or perhaps the announcement of new funds to bid for? The last announcement of £62m was a combination of already announced funds being awarded to winning schemes and the announcement of new funds.
Kaya Burgess points to one of the latter options with a cryptic tweet pointing out that The Times on Sunday story isn’t the full picture.
Sunday Times piece on cycle funding today has only tiny snippets of the full story. Much more detail to come in @TheTimes tomorrow.
— Kaya Burgess (@kayaburgess) August 11, 2013
Whatever happens, I’ll update my page where I track all central government cycle funding announcements.
On a local level, tomorrow won’t be very exciting. Sheffield has partnered with the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire in applying for funding for a new link to get people to the Peak District Park.
Sheffield was one of the few cities to not submit a bid for the Cycle City Ambition Grant which I have criticised in the past. This firmly shows that Sheffield has no ambition when it comes to creating better conditions for cycling.
If there are new funds announced tomorrow then Sheffield has made it very clear that it won’t be bidding. They have stated that we have no schemes on the cards and that we’ll have to wait a couple of years before any new schemes ready for bidding.