Categories
council money

Funding for cycling in Sheffield facing 25% cuts

Last week the draft Local Transport Plan spending plans for 2015/16 were presented to the Highway Cabinet Member Decision Session. The headline is that the transport funding allocation is being slashed by 40% and cycle funding is dropping by 25%.

  • Current Year LTP allocation – £4.523m (cycling = £600,000) (20mph £413,000)
  • Next Year LTP allocation – £2.540m (cycling = £450,000) (20mph £400,000)

LTP funding has been diverted away to the Growth Plan Fund by central government. This fund builds large infrastructure projects designed to deliver economic growth (with no other considerations like health or environmental benefits).

An overview of the cycling projects for the past few years is below.

Project Funding 2013/14 (source) £491,000 Funding 2014/15 (source) £600,000 Funding 2015/16 (source) £450,000
Little Don Link £100,000 £50,000
Upper Don Valley £80,000 £80,000 £20,000
Blackburn Valley £85,000 £80,000 £20,000
Signs £10,000 £10,000 £40,000
Green Routes Network £20,000 £80,000 £120,000
Streets Ahead Opportunities £100,000 (later cut to £50,000) £250,000 £200,000
Connect2 £86,000
Lower Don Valley £14,000
City Centre Cycle Ring Route £100,000

*Note* This is Local transport plan spending only. Other grants such as LSTF, Better Buses, Pinch Points are not included.

Quesion: Why is funding for signage increasing 4 fold from £10,000 to £40,000 per year?

On a related note, this year sees the end of LSTF funding (and South Yorkshire seems to be  struggling to spend all the money). Next year we’ll see a new funding source from the Local Growth Fund – the ‘Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme’ which will spend £3.3m in 2015/16 and 13.0m in the following 2 years. This is a South Yorkshire funding stream, it’s not clear how that will be divided between the local authorities, or what it will be spent on.

If we look at this year’s Sheffield LSTF capital expenditure, £360,000 is for cycling out of £2,000,000, 18%. And Sheffield’s share of LSTF overall is perhaps, I’m guessing, 50% of the South Yorkshire spend. That will add £297,000 in 2015/16 and £585,000 each year for the following years in cycling capital expenditure.

The latest I can find on this is from Dick Proctor in a September 2014 report which states that “[4.9] The majority of these new 3 years funds are being unpacked and prioritised by the SY/SCR partnership, and further reports will be brought back to the Committee as appropriate”

 

Leave a Reply