MICROMOBILITY
WHAT IS THE LEGAL CASE TRANSPORT ACTION NETWORK IS FIGHTING?
A
ccording to Roger Geffen, the crux of Transport Action Network’s judicial review assesses “the legality of the funding cuts made by former Transport Secretary Mark Harper in March 2023.
At the time, he slashed the earmarked funding for active
travel infrastructure from £200m in 2022/3 to just £50m in 2023/4 and 2024/5. A law passed in 2015 requires the Government to publish a Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. It must include objectives for walking and cycling and must set out the funding that the Secretary of State will provide to deliver those objectives. If the Secretary then wants to “vary” a CWIS, they must first consider the “certainty and stability” of cycling and walking investment.” Thus far the initial case was lost at the High Court, but
PHOTO BY TIZZY ON PEXELS
Wales For 2024 into 2025 the Welsh Government has set aside £65 million for active travel projects, an increased spend year-on- year with £46 million allocated in 2023-24. Arguably it’s what’s happening off the roads that’s more of a head turner and there is some quite marked panic in the Welsh mountain biking scene about the future of many of the country’s trails and facilities.
Scotland
Scotland has been dealt a rough hand of late when it comes to funding provision for active travel; in fact, the Scottish Government has given a £40 million haircut to funding for walking and cycling.
As a proportion of transport budget funding, that now pushes active travel spend below 5% (it was 5.6%) down to under 4.6%, so calculates campaign group
Spokes.org.uk Previously the Scottish Government had pledged to work
toward a 10% benchmark, which you’d think would have been a wise and timely investment. Instead, there is enhanced funding for road building. Spokes suggest that the overall spend for active travel will now be around £154.8 million from the prior £198 million.
Arguably more of an issue is that there are no multi-year
settlements available for councils and so large projects are less likely to be greenlighted in view of less long-term visibility being offered and reapplication processes being required for further cash.
52 | February 2025
At the present time numerous industry organisations, ranging Cycling UK, the UK MTB Trail Alliance and Wales Adventure Tourism Organisation are joining forces to push back against proposed closures mooted by Natural Resources Wales as part of a bid to balance its books, with the Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Coed y Brenin and Ynyslas visitor centres all at risk of shuttering. “Closure of these centres runs contrary to the Wellbeing
of Future Generations Act 2015,” argues a petition against the idea. If centres such as these are to close, in the region of 260 jobs are expected to be lost, specifically within the catering and retail elements of visitor centres. To further add perspective, the UK MTB Trail Alliance suggests that in a worst-case scenario around 500km of mountain biking trails would go to waste without support. Needless to say, Wales is well renowned for its cycle
tourism and it’s not just the effects of the aforementioned budget cuts that loom large. When Strom Darragh rolled through in December it had wide-ranging and damaging effects on the trail network. Record winds at BikePark Wales caused unprecedented damage that volunteers have rushed to clear up.
Head to
www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-the-cuts-to- walking-and-cycling to play your part in the legal review.
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the campaign group is pushing on with an appeal that has been granted. Unfortunately, this has ramped up the legal costs of the effort, which have largely come from crowdsourced donations. Of the £70,000 required to bring the appeal, £50,000 has been raised, so there’s a small wedge of cash to make up. The legal argument against the “ad hoc funding cuts” is that the usual legal frameworks were bypassed, which Geffen says “creates a stark and inevitable inconsistency between the active travel objective and the funding to achieve them. We also believe he failed to consider the impacts of his decision on climate and air pollution targets, as well as its equalities implications e.g. what effect the cuts would have on groups such as children, women, older or disabled people, who are disproportionately deterred from cycling by a lack of good infrastructure.”
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