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3 Sep 2024

The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) has responded to the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for August 2024. The report, which can be downloaded here, has highlighted: 

28 Aug 2024

Bikmo, a leading cycling insurtech, and the Association of Cycle Traders (ACT), the UK’s largest and most established cycle trade membership organisation, have announced they are entering...

28 Aug 2024

E-Bike Positive, a new initiative with support from across the cycling industry, is set to equip the public with the information needed to buy safe, ride safe and charge safe while promoting and...

28 Aug 2024

Cycling Weekly has reported independent bike shops across the country continuing the call for reform of the Cycle to Work schemes in their current format and encouraged the government to help...

28 Aug 2024

A £1.5m project to refurbish a walking and cycling route in Coventry has been completed.

28 Aug 2024

The Bira Conference - hosted by ACT's parent company - will take place on Wednesday 16th October at One Great George Street, London.

28 Aug 2024

A Norwich cycle shop is offering commuters the chance to turn their regular pedal bikes into high tech e-bikes.

28 Aug 2024

The transport secretary Louise Haigh has been urged to turn her recent statement that she wants ‘unprecedented levels’ of investment in cycling into firm spending commitments in the...

12 Aug 2024

The shortlisted nominees for the BikeBiz Awards 2024, in association with Push have been announced.

12 Aug 2024

Austrian kid's bike brand, Woom has entered the UK market. Having had success in 30 other countries and sales of over 1 million units, Woom bikes will be distributed by UK trade partners online...

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Ministers prioritised driving over active travel in England, The Guardian reports

Posted on in Business News , Cycles News

The Guardian has reported that ministers decided to prioritise driving over active travel because of worries about “15-minute cities”.

Cycling in the park

The report says that ministers began considering curbs on cycling and walking schemes in March last year, with one document saying, “in response to concerns about 15-minute cities”, an urban planning concept that Rishi Sunak’s government has repeatedly mischaracterised.

Other policy papers, uncovered as part of a legal challenge by the Transport Action Network (TAN), show officials warned ministers that a parallel crackdown on low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) was likely to be legally “challenging”.

Another document advised ministers they should drop plans to improve active travel “quietly”, adding: “We would not propose to make any public announcement to this effect.”

In his speech to the Conservative conference in October, Mark Harper, the transport secretary, described 15-minutes cities as schemes in which “local councils can decide how often you go to the shops”.

While many critics assumed at the time this was just rhetoric, the documents indicate Harper and the Department for Transport (DfT) used this definition as the basis for one of the biggest shifts in transport policy for decades.

The document from March proposes removing pro-active travel measures introduced during Covid because of worries about 15-minute cities.

It is understood that officials were referring to plans to extend LTN-type schemes to wider areas, such as one due to begin in Oxford next year. This has been widely confused with separate 15-minute city ideas.

You can read the full Guardian article here.

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