Early this year, NAO’s report predicted that the government isn’t on track to meet active travel objectives by 2035. Bikeability has highlighted that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have published a report into the hearings held with Active Travel England and the Department of Transport. This assessment found that cuts were the main reason.
Bikeability has highlighted these areas of the report:
- The DfT’s efforts to increase active travel have shown little progress, with no sustained increases in cycling or rates of walking for children
- The government has provided little transparency into the £2.3bn worth of taxpayers’ money spent on active travel infrastructure between 2016 and 2021
- There is serious concern that the essential steps required to fully integrate active travel into the public transport network haven’t been completed
- The PAC report reveals that whilst Bikeability is important, a clear space for its role has not been defined by DfT
Recommendations have been made by Bikeability to offer as much help to children as possible. They have again called for DfT to advise a review of many of its core strategies over the last three years. This has included embedding Bikeability in schools, providing better guidance on cycle training and instruction and the digitisation of Bikeability to afford more actionable data.
To find out more about their recommendations, see here.
