The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker): I am pleased to announce today details of a major investment of over £62 million in cycling in England.
This funding is part of the overall £107 million the Government announced during 2012 for investment over the following three years, and is in addition to the £600 million for the local sustainable transport fund.
I have decided that the £42 million cycling investment funding announced in the Chancellor’s autumn statement will comprise two elements—an urban element and an element for rural areas that are covered by national parks.
For the urban element there will be an opportunity for cities to bid for two or three cycle city ambition grants. These grants would be for infrastructure improvements to give people the confidence to take up cycling.
The areas eligible to apply for those grants would be the cities that have taken part in wave 1 and wave 2 of the city deals process. The list of cities is:
City
Wave 1
Birmingham
Leeds
Sheffield
Newcastle
Bristol
Liverpool
Manchester
Nottingham
City
Wave 2
Black Country
Bournemouth/Poole
Brighton and Hove
Cambridge
Coventry
Hull
Ipswich
Leicester
Oxford
Milton Keynes
Norwich
Plymouth
Portsmouth/Southampton
Preston
Reading
Southend
Stoke on Trent
Sunderland
Swindon
Tees Valley
Successful applicant cities would be expected to provide funding of around £10 per head of population over two years, with a commitment to longer-term funding from the cities. We would expect funding to be focused on a single continuous urban area (i.e. a city centre and its suburbs), or perhaps two centres with high levels of travel to work/leisure connectivity.
Rural areas that are covered by national parks will be invited to apply for funding via the linking communities fund which is administered by Sustrans who will collate bids for Ministers. Successful bids will be those that can demonstrate schemes enabling more people to cycle.
The deadline for receipt of bids for the £42 million package will be 30 April, with a view to announcing successful bids in the summer this year. I will be placing a copy of the bidding guidance and application forms in the Library of the House when they are available shortly. They will also be published on the Department’s website at www.gov.uk/dft.
In respect of the remaining £20 million, £15 million will be used to boost the community linking places fund to support schemes that improve cycle-rail integration and enhance community cycling. A full list of schemes can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ linking-places-fund-tranche-2. Five million pounds will be added to the fund already earmarked to tackle dangerous junctions.
