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04
Jan 2023
Dismay as North Yorkshire awarded just £220,000 to boost cycling and walking
A councillor has expressed dismay as it emerged North Yorkshire stands to receive about a third of a penny per resident to boost active travel schemes this year, as part of Boris Johnson’s £2bn “walking and cycling revolution”.
An officers’ report to a meeting of senior North Yorkshire councillors and officers states the county has been offered £220,780 of the £30m on offer to develop active travel across England this year despite having received below average funding last year.
While neighbouring authorities in West Yorkshire and Teesside each received £1.3m in 2022, North Yorkshire was given just £207,683, which the council announced would be used to plug a shortfall in government funding for school Bikeability courses and to review several Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans.
The announcement follows the government rejecting the authority’s bid for a £116m share of its Bus Back Better initiative in its entirety, saying the North Yorkshire council had failed to show ambition.
Ahead of this year’s funding allocations being decided Active Travel England issued a social media post stating it wanted “to work with the willing and that means sharing our faith and the majority of our funding with councils that have the highest levels of leadership, ambition and ability to deliver”.
It said councils’ capability and ambition to deliver successfully, alongside their recent track record would inform the funding allocations for active travel schemes.
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Of the £220,780 funding this year, the officers’ report states £143,000 could be spent on developing a route connecting Brayton to nearby Selby town centre and the rail station.
The remainder of the funding will be used to buy intelligent traffic sensors to gather data about walking and cycling and for behaviour change initiatives, such as travel planning at schools and marketing schemes.
The report states:
North Yorkshire County Council’s Independent group leader, Cllr Stuart Parsons welcomed that the funding was due to be spent somewhere other than Harrogate, following numerous transport schemes being focused on the county’s biggest population centre in recent years.
He said:
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