Cycling England axed

ketsbaia

Saving a whopping £200k.

*applauds cycling-friendly coalition*

OldSkoolKona

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/33018/LibDe ... ng-England

No more "dedicated cycling pot of money" says Norman Baker, scrapping pro-bicycle org that costs just £200,000 to run per year.

Cabinet secretary Francis Maude has revealed which of the non-departmental public bodies will be scrapped. As feared, Cycling England is one of them.

Cycling England was established in 2005 as an independent body to get "more people cycling, more safely, more often." It steered through the Bikeability training scheme for children (300,000 are trained each year), and created the Cycling Demonstration Towns to show that English conurbations would take to cycling if the right pro-bicycle measures were put in place.

But, for what most observers say are ideological reasons dressed up as financial savings, the Coalition Government has scrapped an organisation with just three full-time staff. The cost saving? £200,000 per year, or about the cost of 5 metres of motorway. Cycling England had no offices and an overhead of less than 0.1 percent of its budget.

Scrapping such a cost-efficient body, Norman Baker, Under Secretary of State for Transport [pictured], and the minister in charge of cycling, said the decision to scrap Cycling England was motivated by localism:

"This new Coaltion Government is firmly committed to cycling. That is why it is expressly referred to in the Coalition Agreement," said Baker.

"We want to give more power and more flexibility to local authorities as we strongly believe that they know best what is right for their communities."

Talking about the new Local Sustainable Transport fund - which has yet to be allocated a budget and which will be dominated by modes of transport other than cycling – Baker said:

The abolition of Cycling England will take effect from the end of March 2011.

Cycling England chairman Phillip Darnton said:

"Critically the decision to abolish Cycling England threatens the future of national cycling proficiency training, Bikeability. This scheme currently receives £12 million p.a. through Cycling England from the Department for Transport.

"Discontinued funding would mean a new generation lost to cycling, and a risk of increased accidents through lack of proper instruction. This prospect is alarming in its implications for childhood obesity and the environmental impact of a further increase in car trips to school."

Projects funded by Cycling England are all delivered by local groups, as part of locally determined plans. Achievements of Cycling England - an organisation that mostly works behind the scenes - include a 27 percent increase in cycling trips in three years in Cycling Demonstration Towns against a national trend that has been declining consistently for 50 years.

There had also been a 174 percent increase in trips to school by bike where school cycling programmes were put in place by Cycling England.

While Norman Baker is the name on Cycling England's death warrant, the real decision maker was Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. He's a motoring enthusiast who, upon moving into the post, said he enjoyed taking his Jaguar car on empty stretches of road.

In a 'future of transport' speech at the recent Conservative party conference Hammond didn't mention cycling once but told delegates congested British cities would be relieved when more electric cars came on the market; cars that are the same physical size as petrol cars. Motorists who buy electric cars will be gifted with £5000 sweeteners.

Cyclists, however, from March 2011, will be sidelined. No longer will cycling have an umbrella body which can talk directly, and with authority, to Government departments.

Gussio

This Government will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

SamWise72

Very depressing, but about what you'd expect from the Kitten Stranglers. Never mind, they'll only last one term.

DonDaddyD

Dude that's 5 years. I don't think I can last that long!

further

"This new Coaltion Government is firmly committed to cycling. That is why it is expressly referred to in the Coalition Agreement," said Baker.

And this is the sum of what the Coalition Agreement has to say about about cycling: “We will support sustainable travel initiatives, including the promotion of cycling and walking, and will encourage joint working between bus operators and local authorities.”

Fills you with confidence, eh?

If her brain still worked the milk snatcher would be proud.

SamWise72

DonDaddyD wrote:

Dude that's 5 years. I don't think I can last that long!

Dude, didn't you VOTE for them?

SimonAH

Regardless of who holds the dispatch box, the problem is we have to save a shirt load of money.

I am also very sad to see the loss of Cycling for England, and there will be many many more worthy casualties.

We've gotta do it though. And if this is the worst that hits our area of special interest then I'd say we're getting off lightly.

SamWise72

I can't help thinking, after Philip Green's report, that perhaps getting the purchasing right, and saving 25 billion a year, then just DOING that for 6 years might not be a better bet than slashing and burning?

rjsterry

Putting to one side how shameful this is. I guess we (cyclists, cycling parents particularly) should start leaning on our local councillors, schools (via PTA/school governor? Dunno, haven't got there yet) to make sure that cycling proficiency/Bikeability or its equivalent continue in spite of the hack and slash. Maybe get yourself trained to be able to run one of these courses, even.

The only small consolation is that it isn't just cycling. Despite all the right wing propaganda about how wasteful quangos are, most of them do very useful jobs. Here's the full list

W1

Tough times, tough decisions. The cuts have to be made somewhere, there will be opposition to each and every one from differently affected parts.

We have to accept that we won't like them all - or do we only support cuts when they don't affect us?

Get real team, 13 years of labour NOW has to be paid for.

SamWise72

Again, see my Philip Green point above. Keep everything, just run it sensibly.

OldSkoolKona

OldSkoolKona wrote:

"We want to give more power and more flexibility to local authorities as we strongly believe that they know best what is right for their communities."

Have you SEEN what most local authorities put in as cycling "farcilities"?? All in the name of cyclists...

Having ranted about this in the past where my local council put in a farcility with no consultation with cyclists :roll: , I can't say I'm that hopeful. Await to see the money assigned for 'sustainable transport' being transferred to replace other council funds depleted by the cuts

DonDaddyD

SamWise72 wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Dude that's 5 years. I don't think I can last that long!

Dude, didn't you VOTE for them?

Are you mad!!!

What working class and/or ethnic minority would vote Conservative in this Country!? Culturally/socially speaking I find that me and most my family and family friends have Convservative values, but to vote for them, here, madness!

I voted Lib Dem because the MP in the area was really good. The other two were terrible. Conservatives got in.

I'm not overly excited about the next election. The Blair generation clearly left a power vacuum in the Labour Party. Anyone who think 'Milliband the lesser' is going to lead unchallenged is kidding themselves. Sure he's a union man (they not his Party members are why he is in) and they need him as Leader of the opposition right now but that will only last for so long.

Clegg bed hopped one bed too far IMO and the Lib Dem's cannot continue as a legitimate Left sided Party if this continues.

Oh hum... you got me started....

SamWise72

I had definitely gained the impression you were a Conservative voter during the big row about the London Mayor. My apologies for a major sleight on you!

further

We have to accept that we won't like them all - or do we only support cuts when they don't affect us?

We take sides, that's politics.

ketsbaia

further wrote:

We have to accept that we won't like them all - or do we only support cuts when they don't affect us?

We take sides, that's politics.

Innit.

Trident replacement = £18 billion
Cycling England = £200k

Guess which one gets cut?

DonDaddyD

W1 wrote:

Tough times, tough decisions. The cuts have to be made somewhere, there will be opposition to each and every one from differently affected parts.

We have to accept that we won't like them all - or do we only support cuts when they don't affect us?

Get real team, 13 years of labour NOW has to be paid for.

You must believe everything the Daily Mail writes.

Yes there was a deficit and yes Labour's spending needed to be reigned in.

The recession wasn't a result of public sector spending. It very much happened in the private sector. Yes it needs to be paid for. Does it need to be paid back so quickly that the action of paying it back (i.e. hack and slash cuts) could cause another and far more damaging recession?

Spending encourages economic growth, you need economic growth to recover from a recession. Tories aren't doing this. What the Tories are hopeing is that by hacking and slashing as they wage an idelogical war on 13yrs of Labour the private sector picks up the slack and through that they encourage economic growth. Not sure how that is going to happen. They aren't paying anything back they want to slash the Public Sector wage bill so they spend less and save more.

Should the private sector not pick up the slack and droves of outsed public sector workers then a very large lump of sh*t is going to hit a very large fan that is spinning incredibly fast.

There is more indication to suggest that the private sector isn't going to pick up the slack. Banks and other organisations are still culling staff, moving offices overseas to save money (there is still a global recession to recover from).

So sharpen your pitch forks and get ready to march!

ketsbaia

C&Ped from elsewhere, but makes interesting reading. Even if you genuinely believe the blame for the current situation can be laid entirely at the last government's door, the evangelical glee the current administration is going about making cuts is frightening when you consider:

The UK’s national debt is not unprecedented by historical or international standards. Current UK debt is 68% of GDP compared to Greece at 115%, Japan at 217%, US at 83.2%, Germany at 73%, Belgium at 97%, France at 77%. The average for advanced economies is 77.3%;

The structure of debt is as important as its size: the vast majority (70-80%) of UK debt is held within the country not by foreign investors. The maturity of UK debt (the length of time until the debt must be paid) is longer-term than other advanced economies: 13 years in the UK compared to an average of 6.5 years for other advanced nations;

The cost of servicing debt is not high historically. Osborne tells us only the absolute or nominal cost of servicing the debt – and the numbers can appear frightening. He does not point out that servicing costs, as a proportion of GDP, are not high by historical or international standards. The IMF estimate that on current policies debt interest payments will rise from 1.6% of GDP in 2007 to 3.1% in 2014. This represents a significant rise of around £15bn a year. However it must be placed in context: the average for advanced G20 nations is projected to be 3.5% of GDP in 2014; 4.5% in the US; in the UK the net interest payment share of GDP was above 3% in the 75 years between 1916 and 1991.

DonDaddyD

SamWise72 wrote:

I had definitely gained the impression you were a Conservative voter during the big row about the London Mayor. My apologies for a major sleight on you!

No need to apologise.

I'm not anything. I'm just a man with an open mind who likes a little from the left, a little from the right and bit in the middle.

I think its too simplistic to say you're completely one or the other.

Even an early Tony Blair (first term) only had it mostly right.

rjsterry

I'd agree with the point about people being in favour of general cuts, but not particular cuts that affect them (hardly surprising that people fight for their particular interest), and I think most quangos could survive a trim - a point made by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. But there's a big difference between reducing everyone's budget, and abolishing things altogether.

A lot of the jobs that these quangos do will still need to be done, and to a certain extent, the functions will be absorbed back into the relevant government department (anyone think we don't need someone keeping an eye on the likes of Thames Water for example, not that Ofwat did a particularly good job), which does rather suggest that the budget cuts are one thing and the symbolic axing of quangos is a politically motivated other.

Suggesting that cutting a £200K cycling quango is all about 'localism' - i.e. letting cash-strapped local authorities carry the can - is somewhat disingenuous I'd say.

alfablue

Localism my ar*e :evil:

prj45

Gutted, of all the quangos to get rid of this wasn't one of them IMO.

Wrath Rob

And guess who's not making a valid comparison?

There's an interesting article by Robert Peston on the BBC site that highlights how much we as a nation need to save over the next few years. £85 billion per annum. That's a lot of money or about £4k per person per year. Sure the Phillip Green report will help and a recovering economy will help too but not to the tune of that much.

What really gets my goat is that Gordon "Prudence" Brown preached prudence and savings and rightly chastising us the consumer for leading a credit driven boom (which I'm sure none of us complained about too much about at the time) while at the same time managing to massively deepen the nationals debt; i.e. doing the very thing he preached against. And people wonder why he lost the election :roll:

SamWise72

I had thought it was 155 billion total. If it's 85 a year, different game, I accept.

OldSkoolKona

Ah, but if this were really about saving money, Cycling England would not be scrapped, an organisation that produces benefits worth three times its expenditure http://bit.ly/bXdEkj

The Cycling Demonstration Towns programme cost £2.8m per year of direct Cycling England grant, matched by an additional £3.4m from the local authorities. This totals £18.7m over the three years of the programme.
The net present value of this investment at the start of the project (2005) is £17.45 million (assuming that the first year’s investment was paid at the end of year one ie all expenditure was discounted back to the start of the project).
This shows that for each £1 invested, the value of decreased mortality is £2.59.
This ‘mortality benefit:cost ratio’ is for mortality only. Including other benefits would increase the ratio considerably.

ketsbaia

OldSkoolKona wrote:

Ah, but if this were really about saving money, Cycling England would not be scrapped, an organisation that produces benefits worth three times its expenditure http://bit.ly/bXdEkj

The Cycling Demonstration Towns programme cost £2.8m per year of direct Cycling England grant, matched by an additional £3.4m from the local authorities. This totals £18.7m over the three years of the programme.
The net present value of this investment at the start of the project (2005) is £17.45 million (assuming that the first year’s investment was paid at the end of year one ie all expenditure was discounted back to the start of the project).
This shows that for each £1 invested, the value of decreased mortality is £2.59.
This ‘mortality benefit:cost ratio’ is for mortality only. Including other benefits would increase the ratio considerably.

Innit. Wonder how much they wasted on Thatcher's 85th birthday that she couldn't make. At least half Cycling England's annual running costs, I expect.

davmaggs

OldSkoolKona wrote:

Ah, but if this were really about saving money, Cycling England would not be scrapped, an organisation that produces benefits worth three times its expenditure http://bit.ly/bXdEkj

The Cycling Demonstration Towns programme cost £2.8m per year of direct Cycling England grant, matched by an additional £3.4m from the local authorities. This totals £18.7m over the three years of the programme.
The net present value of this investment at the start of the project (2005) is £17.45 million (assuming that the first year’s investment was paid at the end of year one ie all expenditure was discounted back to the start of the project).
This shows that for each £1 invested, the value of decreased mortality is £2.59.
This ‘mortality benefit:cost ratio’ is for mortality only. Including other benefits would increase the ratio considerably.

Those figures are the product of the organistion itself and made-up.

Before I join the disappointment, can anyone point to an actual deliverable that Cycling England actually made (not policy or "encouragement")?

OldSkoolKona

At the end of the day cuts have to be made and targeting those cycling "lycra louts" is an easy sell in the current "ending the war on the motorist" Daily Mail thread of transport policy of the new Government.

Its happening everywhere - in Northern Ireland they've announced that they're cutting the budget allocated to cycling facilites from £450,000 to £8,000 at the same time they're increasing the budget for roads from £149 million to £250 million...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/commu ... 76672.html

OldSkoolKona

davmaggs wrote:

Before I join the disappointment, can anyone point to an actual deliverable that Cycling England actually made (not policy or "encouragement")?

Well, you could always check out the views of Cambridge Cycling Campaign who've set up the following website:
http://www.savecyclingengland.org/

Their open letter to Hammond summarises the following:

Secretary of State, you will be aware that, in its five-year existence, Cycling England has been responsible for a range of successful projects, all run for a tiny fraction of overall transport funding, including:

Bikeability: As mentioned above, the nationwide cycle training scheme, teaching children (benefiting around 300,000 per year) and adults to cycle safely and responsibly, at a time when there is an enormous need to encourage healthy lifestyles, promote safe use of roads, and give children freedom;

Cycling Demonstration Towns: Enabling over 2.5m people in 18 towns around the country to benefit from considerably increased levels of infrastructure funding to make roads safer and cycle-friendly, to get more people on their bikes;

Health-related projects to promote cycling as a means of addressing the obesity epidemic and tackling sedentary lifestyles;

Professional support for Local Authorities to ensure that practitioners on-the-ground get cycling right;

Creating design standards and guidance available to highway engineers;

Railway/cycling integration, getting train companies to take cycling seriously

Events and projects all around the country (including Bike Week), ranging from education initiatives, promoting cycling to minority groups, travel planning for businesses and much more.

Prior to the existence of Cycling England, cycling was an unfunded, minority interest tucked away within the Department for Transport, with little funding or political will.

Is that enough for you?

prj45

OldSkoolKona wrote:

Ah, but if this were really about saving money, Cycling England would not be scrapped, an organisation that produces benefits worth three times its expenditure http://bit.ly/bXdEkj

Precisely, most of these "cuts" are purely ideological.