Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities in the North West to promote (a) cycling, (b) walking and (c) other forms of active travel.

The Department is supporting local authorities in the North West and elsewhere in many ways, as set out in the Prime Minister’s 2020 Gear Change plan. Among other things, we are establishing a new body, Active Travel England, to upskill local authorities and work with them on the design of their schemes, thus maximising their opportunities of securing funding from the unprecedented £2 billion that the Government is investing over this Parliament.

We have already made large amounts of both capital and revenue funding available to individual local authorities across the whole of England to enable more walking and cycling in their areas. As well as funding individual schemes this also helps build local authorities’ capability and capacity on active travel matters, as well as allowing them to develop network and scheme plans and supporting behaviour change programmes to boost active travel.