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No More Investment in Cycling – Write to your MP now

Osbourne's Halloween Horror - From The Private Eye
Osbourne’s Halloween Horror – From The Private Eye

I’ve just written to my MP about the news that investment in cycling is going to dry up at the spending review at the end of this month.

You should write to your MP too, it’s easy and only takes a couple of minutes. http://www.writetothem.com/?a=westminstermp

Dear Harry Harpham,

I’m writing to you about the news that investment in cycling is due to be cut in the November spending review at the end of November as reported in The Times yesterday.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article4601075.ece

I’m dismayed at this news. We must keep investing in cycling, not for cyclists, but so that everyone has the freedom to ride a bike. Helping to revitalise our neighborhoods by reducing congestion, noise and making them nicer places to spend time. To give our children the freedom to travel independently, to reduce the burden on our health service, to begin to tackle climate change and especially poor air quality (which all cities in the UK suffer from), and fundamentally, to give people a the choice to move about without relying on a car (especially given 1/3 of households in our constituency do not have access to one).

I understand that a big focus of this review will be on transport infrastructure, but cycling seems to be missing out. Back in March the government published research into the benefit cost ratio (BCR) of cycling investment compared to other transport investment, it showed completely that the BCR was far higher for cycling than for any other form of transport. I simply can’t understand why cycling investment wouldn’t be a key part of infrastructure investment in the UK.
Link:
http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/348943/vfm-assessment-of-cycling-grants.pdf

Please could you let me know what you think and if there’s anything you could do to help? I think the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group is amazing and it’d be great if you were to talk to them about this.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/cycling.htm

Yours sincerely,

Matt Turner

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