Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Rejected
DfT funding cuts for active travel likely hinder achieving 2025 objectives
Conclusion
In March 2023 in response to significant inflationary pressure, DfT announced changes to various transport investment plans. This included a £233 million reduction in its dedicated funding for active travel up to April 2025.19 We received written evidence from the Walking and Cycling Alliance, Sustrans, and Local Government Association setting out their concerns that cuts to active travel funding place a huge challenge on local authorities’ ability to deliver government’s ambition for increased active travel.20 13 C&AG’s Report, para 12 14 Qq 9-11 15 DfT, Walking and cycling statistics, England: Introduction and main findings, published 30th August 2023 16 Q 10 17 C&AG’s Report, para 2.2 18 Q 11 19 Q 69; C&AG’s Report, para 1.10 20 ATE0003, Written evidence submitted by Bikeability Trust; ATE0010, Written evidence submitted by Living Streets; ATE0001, Written evidence submitted by Walking and Cycling Alliance 12 Active travel in England We therefore asked DfT, given the ambitious targets and lack of progress so far, whether funding for active travel was a constraint in being able to meet its targets. DfT told us that it did not think that funding was a key issue limiting progress.21 The NAO found, however, that DfT’s modelling suggested that with the funding available, it was unlikely that it will get close to achieving its 2025 objectives.22
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the implicit recommendation to address funding as a constraint on targets or re-evaluate objectives, stating these will be reviewed in the 2025 report to Parliament on CWIS 2 and revised in the third CWIS, with research commissioned to inform this.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
2.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 2.2 As the Committee has noted in its report, the intention of the department was to set deliberately challenging objectives for active travel in the second statutory Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS 2) and this was irrespective of the funding available. 2.3 The most recent National Travel Survey statistical release on walking and cycling, published on 30 August 2023, showed that the department is on track to achieve only one of the four objectives for active travel in CWIS 2 (that 46% of short journeys in towns and cities should be walked or cycled by 2025). 2.4 The department does not consider it to be necessary to re-evaluate what it expects to achieve against these objectives by 2025. This is because it will be reviewed in the report to Parliament on CWIS 2 and revised objectives will be set within the third CWIS (both due in 2025). 2.5 To inform the report to Parliament and the third CWIS, the department has commissioned research on active travel funding for the first and second CWIS (from 2016 to 2025) and the outputs of that funding. Many of the funding streams within both CWIS periods are projections, based on a range of evidence. This research will more accurately measure how much money has been spent, and what was delivered against the projected outputs.