Country retreat

How the Government's cycling strategy overlooks rural riding

During the last days of Boris Johnson's premiership, the Government launched the second installment of its strategy to boost active travel in England. Unsexily dubbed CWIS2, the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, like its predecessor, was lacking in investment or strategy, and it was thin on details. Worse though, it somehow fudged or mislaid £450m in projected investment figures to 2025, as Cycling UK's policy aficionado, Roger Geffen pointed out. While there is ambition around growing walking and cycling, there is, as Geffen notes, no requirement to fund that ambition and the figures attached to the investment aren't enough to meet its aims.

Perhaps most pertinently, for the considerable proportion of us who live outside of cities, the document codified Number 10's focus on cycle investment in cities and towns. England's target for half of all trips to be made by walking and cycling by 2030 was tweaked, in an appendix to the report, to include only short trips of five miles or less that start or finish in a town or city.

The Government's own cycling minister, Trudy Harrison, will be disappointed as will many of her rural colleagues. Since her time in post, it was her stated aim to improve rural cycling provision, like NCN72 in her Cumbria constituency, which she derides as a "so-called" cycle route, admitting she's pleaded with her kids not to ride on local roads for fear of traffic. North Devon MP, Selaine Saxby, said while CWIS2 is "an important step towards delivering the Government's ambitious programme for active travel", the focus on urban journeys is "disappointing... particularly as ebikes now open up more opportunities for people to cycle in rural areas".