Pedal Power
Issue 158
May 2022
www.ldcuc.org.uk
Cycle Storage
Some time ago campaign member Anthony Kay wrote to Loughborough’s MP, Jane Hunt, about mandating builders to include provision for cycle storage in all new dwellings, the main text of which appears below.
I refer to the recent announcement that builders of new homes will be required to include charging points for electric vehicles. This is a sensible measure, but I would like to draw your attention to another requirement that could be placed on house builders which would have an even bigger impact on reducing CO2 and other polluting emissions from vehicles.
It should be made mandatory for all new homes to include secure storage for cycles, located so that it is at least as convenient to take out the cycle as to get in the car. This would mean that residents would not automatically get in the car for any journey, but would think about using a cycle if the journey is short enough. Note that although electric cars may solve the problem of CO2 emissions (if the electricity is generated by renewables), they still cause the same problems of urban congestion and road danger as petrol or diesel cars, whereas cycling also tackles these problems (as well as being better for personal health).
The practicalities of this provision would be as follows. If a private garage is provided in a house, it should be big enough to accommodate cycles as well as a car; and since it is relatively easy for criminals to break into a garage (from personal experience!), a sturdy stand or wall-mounted loop should be provided to lock cycles to. If no garage is provided, then the house should include a secure cycle storage area, close to the front door for the convenience of residents.
I sometimes respond to planning applications for housing developments on behalf of Loughborough & District Cycle Users’ Campaign, and I often have to point out that the proposed provision of cycle storage is inadequate. Would you please therefore ask the relevant minister to include the requirement for cycle storage at the same time that the requirement for electric vehicle charging points is introduced.
This was passed to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and elicited this response:
Planning guidance such as the National Design Guide, sets out the ten characteristics of well-designed places, which includes ensuring that homes and buildings are functional, healthy and sustainable, and that new development is accessible and easy to move around. As part of this the National Design Guide asks local councils to consider well-designed and conveniently sited cycle parking and storage so that it is well used.
Our new National Model Design Code builds on this, providing tools and guidance to local councils to develop their own design codes. Where provision of bicycle storage is of particular importance to local communities, this can be reflected in the design codes, by setting a standard for new developments to provide such amenities. A design code may also define the appropriate locations and forms for cycle parking, in close proximity to homes and buildings, both for building occupants and for visitors.
Bleak state of unclassified roads
Based on an article by Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK
Each year the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) commissions a survey of the general condition of local road networks in England and Wales. Data comes directly from local authorities responsible for maintenance, and it’s therefore a robust way to closely track improvements and deterioration in any given year.
With a record response rate from councils in England and Wales, the 2022 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey finds a clear link between continued underinvestment and the ongoing structural decline of our local roads.
The survey shows the reported backlog of carriageway repairs has increased to £12.64bn – by nearly a quarter (23%), from £10.24bn the previous year. This backlog is the one-time catch-up cost local authorities would have to meet to bring their networks up to conditions where they can be maintained in a cost-effective way.
The amount of funding needed to close the gap is the equivalent of £75.5 million per local authority in England and Wales.
According to the survey, average highway maintenance budgets across England and Wales have increased slightly by 4% to £24.7m per authority. This does not, however, account for the impacts of increased costs from rising inflation, as well as ongoing impacts of coronavirus restrictions and changes to working practices.
The percentage of budgets allocated to the carriageway itself also dropped slightly from 55% to 51%. While the survey by AIA focuses solely on the carriageway – the road surface and structure itself – highway maintenance budgets allocate funds for street lighting, structural work to bridges, and cyclical work such as cutting grass and checking traffic signals. Thus the proportional drop in spending on the carriageway reflects a growing pressure to spend money on maintaining these other parts of the highway asset.
Although the average maintenance budget allocated to the carriageway still increased marginally, by 1.5% to £13.2 million, this represents a cut in real terms when measured against inflation.
Although recent government announcements around three-year spending on maintenance are a step in the right direction, they don’t go far enough – the longer it takes to put funding in place to tackle the backlog of repairs, the more expensive it will become to do so, as roads continue to deteriorate further. Engineers have to opt for urgent, reactive repairs such as fixing potholes, because they can be completed quickly, instead of maintenance that goes deeper to extend the life of the network.
In England and Wales, a pothole is fixed every 19 seconds – in the last financial year, that amounted to 1.7m potholes.
Unclassified roads are at least three times more likely than principal or non-principal roads to get RED status in the Road Condition Index (RCI) data – in other words, to be of poor overall condition and likely to need maintenance in the next 12 months. Of the local road network in England and Wales, 18% (almost 37,000 miles) is now defined as being structurally poor, with less than five years’ life remaining.
Fuel duty cut is a missed opportunity
Base on an article by Cycling UK
The UK government has cut fuel duty by 5p per litre in response to the cost-of-living crisis, effective from March 2022 to March 2023. The total loss to the Treasury of £2.4bn is equivalent to three times the current designated active travel infrastructure investment of £738.5m per year across the UK.
A report by Walking Cycling Climate Action Ltd has assessed whether equivalent spending in active travel infrastructure would offer better value for money by replacing high-carbon miles driven with low-carbon miles walked and cycled. It also quantifies what the alternative investment would look like in each nation, given that investment in cycling and walking is devolved.
According to the report, tripling investment in active travel would translate into better value for money in three ways:
- The financial relief would be distributed more fairly between families and individuals, regardless of whether they drive, if the money were spent towards creating world-class walking and cycling infrastructure.
- It would also result in a carbon reduction worth 1.5 times the footprint of the entire aviation industry in the UK – a cut of 57.4 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent.
- Redirecting high carbon subsidies to active travel spending would also deliver on big ticket whole-economy issues, including the economy, health, national security and net zero targets.
This demonstrates that this was a missed opportunity to use rising prices to reduce fuel-dependency by investing in public transport and active travel to give people realistic alternatives to taking the car.
It was claimed that there isn’t enough money, but the report shows that the £2.4bn could have transformed sustainable transport options. In particular, people on the lowest incomes and most affected by the cost-of-living crisis are least likely to drive and so won’t benefit at all from this carbon subsidy.
The majority of all journeys made (71% in England) are under five miles, and with better investment in active travel infrastructure, some of those could be shifted from a car journey to walking or cycling.
Cycling infrastructure benefits
Cycling UK has produced a report the clearly sets out the benefits of creating cycle lanes and other cycling infrastructure which can be found at https://www.cyclinguk.org/node/683896 .
‘Getting there with cycling’ consolidates evidence from multiple research studies, reports and real-life examples to demonstrate the benefits of rapidly building cycling infrastructure across the UK.
Save by Cycling
According to the National Travel Survey, the average car is used for 428 trip per year, 70% of these (300) being of less than 5 miles. A litre of petrol costs about £1.50, and assuming the car does about 15 miles to the litre, the cost of petrol for a 5 mile trip would be 50p plus wear and tear on an engine that is running inefficiently for much of the journey.
If you cycle there is no fuel cost and the engine improves its efficiency and life expectancy.
