Skip to main content

UK investment to make it easier and safer to get on your bike

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced the UK Government’s biggest single investment in cycling, which includes US$179 million to secure funding to support the Cycling Ambition Cities Programme for the next three years in Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford accelerate their development of local cycling networks, increase protection for cyclists at junctions and traffic hot spots and help prevent accidents. US$157 million will also be invested over t
November 28, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced the UK Government’s biggest single investment in cycling, which includes US$179 million to secure funding to support the Cycling Ambition Cities Programme for the next three years in Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford accelerate their development of local cycling networks, increase protection for cyclists at junctions and traffic hot spots and help prevent accidents.

US$157 million will also be invested over the next years to improve the conditions for cyclists and walkers travelling alongside and crossing Britain’s most important and busiest roads, or the Strategic Road Network.

This brings the total invested in cycling by the government to US$924 million.

Recent research commissioned by British Cycling found that if the UK became a cycling nation like the Netherlands or Denmark it could: save the NHS £17 billion within 20 years; reduce road deaths by three per cent; increase mobility of the nation’s poorest families by 25 per cent; and increase retail sales by a quarter.

The Deputy Prime Minister will also launch two new initiatives to help inspire a new generation of cyclists: a new scheme from Halfords, which will recondition and donate bikes and helmets to primary school children in disadvantaged areas of the 8 current cycling cities; and a new pilot scheme to enhance the Bikeability cycle training programme to provide extra training to schools and parents, each designed to address a specific barrier to cycling.

Related Content

  • Nexus to invest in modernisation work in 2017
    February 1, 2017
    Nexus, operator of the Tyne and Wear Metro in the UK, is to invest US$44 million (£35 million) in Metro modernisation work in 2017, involving major projects to renew and replace Metro’s ageing infrastructure, including track and overhead lines. It forms part of the Metro all-change modernisation programme, the scheme to secure Metro’s long term future over eleven years. The modernisation programme is now into its sixth year. Nexus will be investing US$138 million (£110 million) through to 2021 on mode
  • Clearview launches ROI calculators for road safety schemes
    December 5, 2017
    Clearview Intelligence (CI) has launched two free to use Return on Investment (ROI) calculators to assist highway professionals in showing the benefit of improving road safety on their network. The tools are said to demonstrate how road safety schemes pay for themselves during their lifetime as well as quantify the number of lives saved and injuries prevented. Designed for SolarLite Active Road Stud installations and the other for combination road safety solutions, the tools use the costs of accidents from
  • Birmingham mobility action plan unveiled
    November 7, 2013
    Birmingham City Council has unveiled its Birmingham Mobility Action Plan (BMAP), a twenty-five year vision for improving transport in the congested UK city, which planners estimate will have an extra 80,000 cars on its road by 2031, bringing the network to a grinding halt.
  • Are e-scooters safe for cities?
    November 6, 2019
    Electric scooters are promoted as both a lifestyle choice and an environmentally friendly means of solving first- and last-mile challenges.