Bristol gets share of ?100m cycling fund

Bristol will have the chance to bid for more than £100million of government money to improve cycling in the city over the next three years.

At a conference in Bristol today, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will say he wants to bring cycling “down from the Alps and onto British streets”.

A £114m fund has been set aside to support the Cycling Ambition Cities Programme for the next three years in eight cities – Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford.

The fund aims to improve local cycling networks, increase protection for cyclists at junctions and traffic hot spots and help prevent accidents.

Meanwhile, an extra £100m investment will be made to improve conditions for cyclists and walkers alongside and crossing Britain’s most important and busiest roads.

The announcement is being made today in Bristol by Clegg and attended by Olympic cycling gold medallist Chris Boardman.

“I want to bring cycling down from the Alps and onto British streets,” the deputy prime minister said. “The inspiration and legacy of the 2012 Olympics and the Tour de France starting in Yorkshire this year has started a revolution in cycling for everyone, not just in velodromes, not necessarily in lycra, but for going to school or to work or to the shops.

“I’m committed to helping our dream of becoming a cycling nation, similar to places like Denmark and the Netherlands, become a reality.

“The rewards could be massive. Billions of pounds in savings for the NHS, less pollution and congestion, and a happier and safer population. In government, we’re putting the money down: now we need the public and local authorities to jump on their bikes and get us to the finish line.”

Two new initiatives to help inspire a new generation of cyclists are also being unveiled:

• a new scheme from Halfords, which will recondition and donate bikes and helmets to primary school children in disadvantaged areas of the eight current cycling cities
• a new pilot scheme to enhance the Bikeability cycle training programme to provide extra training to schools and parents, each designed to address a specific barrier to cycling

Boardman, who won an individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 summer Olympics, said: “This is a great stepping stone on the road to creating a safer environment and enabling more Brits to choose cycling as their preferred mode of transport.”

Eric Booth, from Bristol Cycling Campaign Group, welcomed the funding but described it as “piecemeal”.

“The Bristol Cycling Campaign is concerned not just about the core cities – we’re interested in areas like North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and the local authorities around us, where people live and work and move into Bristol,” he told the BBC.

“This funding is another example of the piecemeal approach. It’s targeted at a small number of cities and this is a real problem for the sustained change that we need.”