TRENDSPOTTING
Here you may weigh up the pros and cons of taking part on account of the margins you earn per product.
A new Government with a new attitude Leaving aside policy on business and focusing solely on those pieces of legislation and general political sentiment to active travel, we’re on to a winner. Well, the words are good, the actions are to follow and will take time, but count me encouraged. The Government’s part in the culture wars seems finally over. So, to refresh those who missed it, Louise Haigh was
the Transport Secretary and by day two of the new Government she had caught up with Chris Boardman at Active Travel England. Fast forward a bit and the spending cuts of the Tory Government have been reversed and we have a £100 million spend for the 2025/26 period. That’s sofa change and less than Boris Johnson’s Gear Change era spending, but it’s not a freeze and it’s not a cut. Not that there was much left to cut. So the money’s barely going to get the workmen out of the van. Fine. But sentiment counts for a lot, knowing that you have ministers and MPs on your side is quite uplifting and I believe we now do.
PHOTO CREDIT: DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT
Chris Boardman of Active Travel England with Louise Haigh MP and writer Laura Laker
Progress has been evidenced within Transport Select Committee hearings and meetings of the cross-party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking, now co- chaired by an MP who had three bikes in his Parliamentary office when I met him there pre-election. We are promised “unprecedented” levels of funding. A
quote Haigh stands by, apparently. Until then the Government has some books to balance, so we’re told. The cycling revolution in the UK may start sometime in 2026, then. But please don’t quote me on that.
Wages: About to become a talking point? Now this one’s either good news or bad news, depending on your position or perspective. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already set in stone a 6.7% minimum wage increase to come into effect from April, meaning a rise to £12.21 per hour. This means around three million workers given a bump on their pay, which to be fair, is reasonable given the rate of inflation in 2024.
I’m not so much talking about this known known, however.
Faced with taking apart an internally routed headset on an electric bike recently I cursed aloud something to the tune of ‘*bleep* doing this every day’.
www.bikebiz.com
January 2025 | 41
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