Cycling

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I agree that cycling infrastructure is important. It is an important way of communicating to people that cycling is a safe option. I will address that later in my comments.

I can think of no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than on my bike with my son on the lanes and off-road cycle routes around Basingstoke. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and I both know, Hampshire is blessed with 750 miles of off-road cycle routes and urban cycle paths. Cyclists are getting everywhere. This year, for the first time, St John Ambulance is using cycle responders at festivals across Hampshire. In Basingstoke, our local police effectively use mountain bikes for town centre patrols and to help police work around parks and other public areas.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Maria Miller]

I should like to make a little more progress, as I fear that I might run out of time.

As a result of more people cycling, the figures show a decline in the risk of having an accident when cycling. But the absolute number of accidents and tragic fatalities remains a real concern for anyone who cycles regularly, or who has a friend or family member who has been in a cycling accident. There is still so much more to be done to make cycling safer and a real option for more people.

I wish to focus on two areas of the all-party group’s report, namely road design and education, which are key to achieving the Minister’s ambitions. We need to design cycling into our everyday lives. Like many successful towns, Basingstoke faces the big problem of road congestion. I thank the Minister and his Department, especially the Secretary of State, for the investments that they have made recently in our local roads in Basingstoke. More than £30 million has been spent on improving the roundabouts for which Basingstoke is so famous. I must say though that that investment should have been put in place a decade and a half ago when the Labour party set high housing targets for Basingstoke. That money is there not to allow cars to move around more easily, but to reduce traffic congestion. Encouraging more people to cycle and indeed to walk is part of achieving that strategy.

The Prime Minister himself has made it clear that all new big road developments will incorporate the needs of cyclists, which was underlined in the Government’s delivery plan today. Like many other communities, we have a persuasive group of cycling campaigners. In particular, I pay tribute to my constituent Ms Heather Rainbow for her tenacity and campaigning zeal. For any campaign to work, we need practical changes in the roads. Nationally, two-thirds of non-cyclists think it is just too dangerous to cycle on roads; indeed almost half of all cyclists think that too. Changing road design will help change that attitude and encourage more people to cycle. We cannot allow new road designs simply to reflect the current pattern of use.

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[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as being active in the all-party group on cycling, I represent one of the boroughs with the best records on cycling in the country, with the highest percentage of people cycling to work of any London borough. A total of 14.6% of Hackney residents cycle to work, whereas the London average is 7%. The previous census showed that Hackney is the only place in the UK where more people commute by bike than by car, and 12.8% commute by car. The increase in cycling in Hackney over the years has been considerable. Between 1991 and 2001, cycling in Hackney grew by 70%, faster than anywhere else in the country—although it is probably fair to mention that we are working from a lower base than places such as Cambridge, Oxford or York.

[Bob Stewart]

The problem is that my constituency is quite a long way from London. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be really good if people were encouraged to take their bicycles on the train, or if there were facilities on the train, even during the rush hour, so that they could do the combination of cycle-train-cycle-work, and the reverse?

[Meg Hillier]

I completely agree. I am tempted to go on a diversionary rant about how badly trains are designed for cyclists. One of the things that has burgeoned in Hackney is use of the Brompton bike. I am advertising a brand, but it is a very good brand. It is a British-made bike that has been one of the ways in which people get around the challenges of cycling. As I am now on this sideways rant, let me also say that there are the wrong types of limitations. I look to the Minister on this. Transport for London does good work on this and in other areas, but there are minimum limits on what it needs to do at stations. The same applies to National Rail. Stations do not meet the needs of cyclists who want to leave their bike at the station at either end. Trains and parking at stations are important issues, but if I talked about those it would divert me from my speech.

In 2001, the cycling rate in Hackney was much lower, with nearly 7% of working residents commuting by bike—not just cycling but commuting. The growth between 2001 and 2011 was incredible. One of the things we identified in the “Get Britain Cycling” report was the importance of political leadership in ensuring that cycling is promoted. I point both Front Benchers towards the example of Hackney. I pay tribute to our mayor, Jules Pipe, to the current cabinet member for this area, Councillor Feryal Demirci, and to her predecessor, Vincent Stops, who remains a champion of cycling. All the councillors in Hackney put bike first in their thinking. As the all-party group, we had an opportunity to cycle around Hackney with some of the council’s planning officers and Councillor Demirci to see for ourselves how they “think bike” at every stage. They do not just “think bike” but “think pedestrian” on things such as accessible streets. It is often little measures such as taking away the barriers at junctions and improving signposting on quieter side routes that have made a difference regarding the exponential growth in the number of people who cycle in Hackney.

Hackney also promotes free cycle training for adults and children, which, even with the tight financial situation, has made a difference. Let me speak up for middle-aged women everywhere who cycle slowly in their ordinary clothes—or, as I famously said in the summer, “pootle”. I certainly pootle. I should stress, given the Twitter-storm that ensued afterwards, that I am not speaking for every woman. I pootle slowly in my ordinary clothes. I am well aware that many women wish to go fast in Lycra, but that is not for me; I do not quite have the figure for it, for a start. A lot of cyclists do not want to go fast, hammering down the streets. Hackney works to try to signpost people down quiet side roads that suit them. That is very important, because aggressive cyclists can be as off-putting to people as bad traffic, noise and pollution. [Interruption.] I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) wanted to intervene, but he was simply praising the approach that Hackney has taken.

Cyclists in Hackney have always been a very active and vocal group. Hackney council has worked very closely with the Hackney cycling campaign, which has 1,000 members. We have the largest membership of a cycling campaign in any London borough. The borough has not rested there—it has looked at why people do not cycle. These are messages that we could be learning nationally. This does not all cost a great deal of money. People who do not cycle tend to be poor and living in places where they cannot store bikes, so the council has promoted storage, with a private company providing bike lockers on estates where former pram sheds have been removed.

As I said, training is free. There is buddying-up with a cyclist for those who want to go on a particular route. As a middle-aged woman who cycles slowly in my ordinary clothes, going out with a professional trainer and good regular cyclist has been revelatory. One has to do it only once to remember what to do and take the road more confidently. I cycled all my life until I moved back to London, and then felt a bit scared about it. When I got back in the saddle, that help made me feel confident. I urge the timid people out there to take up these opportunities.

Hackney has set a lead in doing this because of its political leadership, and the Minister has that opportunity, but the lead also needs to come from elsewhere. We have called for a cycling champion. We need somebody—a cycling tsar, or whatever we want to call them—who “talks bike” and gives a high profile to the issue so that Ministers in other Departments have to think about it too. It is not just a matter for the Department for Transport; it is also for the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health.

The leader of Ealing council—I am sure he will not mind my saying this—has spoken very passionately about how he had a health warning a few years ago. He needed to lose weight and had other health problems. He got on his bike, and that alone solved his health problems and made the difference. He is now passionate about making his London borough as good as Hackney, in time.

Planning has to be built in from day one. Whenever I speak about cycling, people often write to me to say, “It’s terrible that you’re not talking about segregation every step of the way.” Segregation certainly has an important part to play; as other Members have said, it would be very difficult to cycle along some roads without segregation. Realistically, however, it is not possible in a city such as London to have segregated cycle paths everywhere, all at once, overnight. We are not asking the Minister for that, because it is clear that he would rule it out on financial grounds alone. Hackney’s approach has been to find little ways that make a difference, such as placing a bollard here or there to make it easier for pedestrians, buggies and cyclists to get through. We have to look at this in the round.

I want to touch briefly on the Mayor of London’s transport policy, particularly the cycle super-highway along the very busy Whitechapel road neighbouring my constituency. One proposal is to carve through the pavement in order to narrow it to 2.5 metres, which is about the same size as an average side street, and require pedestrians to cross the cycle super-highway to get to the bus stop. That is bonkers. We have to make sure that, in the attempt to improve cycling, cyclists are not pitted against pedestrians.

I am ambivalent about the question of whether cycle super-highways are the answer. I think there is merit to them in some places, but one of the key things is how they will join up, which is a wider national issue. Good things could be happening in two separate boroughs, but if a bit in the middle does not work very well—there could be a dangerous gap or junction or a narrow busy road—that will put people off. We need political leadership from a champion in Whitehall who will bang heads together if there is such a problem. It does not have to involve money; a Minister could influence the situation by putting pressure on local government when it does not deliver.

Hackney has benefited from reducing and slowing traffic through measures such as humps, parking zones, improving junctions—which remains the biggest challenge in any city, particularly London—and, as I mentioned earlier, assigning quieter routes off main roads. In fact, it is possible to cycle around the backstreets of Hackney and rarely meet a moving car. That is what gives me the confidence to cycle slowly in my own little way.

Hackney’s approach has been incremental and consistent. That is what has really made the difference. It has not been a stop-start process. The census figures indicate that Hackney has been doing it solidly for the decade the mayor of Hackney has been leader. He has shown determination to put cyclists first.

I am using Hackney as a proxy for what could happen nationally. With the right attitude and by using the money that both local and central Government already provide for cycling, a lot can be done. The little more money that we would ultimately like to see—that is our aspiration—would speed things up and make sure that the gaps were filled. More can be achieved even without that money, but it is ultimately down to the Minister to make sure that that vision for cycling across the country is championed and that local government is pushed into making sure that it thinks bike every step of the way.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I wanted to speak in this debate not only because, as a member of the all-party group on cycling, I sat on the report panel, but because I am a cyclist myself.

Cycling is booming in the Colne and Holme valleys and Lindley in my parliamentary constituency, not least because of the amazing spectacle that was the Tour de France in Yorkshire; it also went through Cambridge, of course. On a sunny Sunday in July, the world’s eyes were on Chris Froome and the peloton as they whizzed down into Huddersfield from Ainley Top and glided through the Holme valley before tackling the gruelling climb up Holme Moss. It was at the foot of that climb that my family watched the race outside my mum and dad’s house.

The tour legacy is clear to see. My local Kirklees council calculates that £10 has been generated in economic benefits for every £1 invested, but it is the cycling legacy I want to focus on. Holmfirth cycling club was set up shortly before the tour. It now has 259 members, a third of whom are women. It is the fastest growing club in the UK and it signed up more junior members than any other club during the Tour de France.

[Bob Stewart]

Such enthusiasm for cycling is also being generated by other sporting clubs. Beckenham rugby club now has the Beckenham rugby cyclists, which is brilliant. Let us keep encouraging that sort of thing.

[Jason McCartney]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Cycling is a great way to see our beautiful countryside and to keep fit, so perhaps it provides a bit of alternative training for those rugby players.

Holmfirth cycling club offers weekly mountain bike rides and midweek rides, and once a month there is a long weekend ride. There are also training sessions for young riders and adult cyclo-cross training.

Streetbikes in Lockwood, led by the inspirational Gill Greaves, works with schools and community groups, teaching adults and children how to cycle. It also fixes unwanted bikes and donates them back into the community. Its projects are growing week on week. Some 50 people regularly turn up to “rock up and ride” events, and 80 people attended a mixed ability session last Thursday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I have seen that happen on the A64 in my own area. In many cases, it may be because the maintenance of the cycle path is not good. Indeed, in some places cyclists are encouraged to cross the main carriageway because there is a cycle path on only one side of it. I would, however, urge all road users to abide by the rules of the road, and to respect others who are using it. Speaking as one who is a motorist and has been a lorry driver, a cyclist, a horseless carriage driver, a steam engine driver—you name it, I have driven it—I think it important for us all to treat each other with respect on the road.

[Bob Stewart]

May I clarify one point? The Government intend to try to reach a spending level of £10 per person. Do they expect that to be done entirely at local level, or will they provide additional funds to help local authorities?

[Mr Goodwill]

While the Highways Agency network will be dealing with our commitment to cycle-proof new road schemes, local highway authorities, local councils, or the Mayor of London and some of the other mayors around the country deliver on other schemes. We have a good track record of giving money, whether through cycling ambition grants for our cities or through local sustainable transport schemes, nearly all of which include a cycling element. We have seen local authorities deliver that, which is great. Councillor Martyn Bolt in Kirklees, for instance, is a real champion of cycling. I think that every local authority needs a cycling champion to ensure that its priorities are the priorities of the cyclist.