Walking

(asked on 15th December 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding was allocated to projects related to increasing the number of journeys on foot (a) between 2005 and 2010 and (b) between 2010 and 2014.


Answered by
Robert Goodwill Portrait
Robert Goodwill
This question was answered on 18th December 2014

The Department supported the following walking initiatives during financial years 2005/06 and 2009/2010: £2.5m for the Active School Travel programme between 2009/10 and 2010/11, £5m from Department of Health for cycling and walking as part of an obesity initiative in 2009/10, and £700k for the Schools ‘Finding New Solutions’ programme in 2010/11.

Between 2010 and 2014, the primary source of funding for walking initiatives has been the Local Sustainable Transport Fund. The Fund is a £600m grant programme for local authorities that currently supports a range of sustainable transport projects across England. While this funding can be used for a range of transport interventions, many projects support walking either directly or as a secondary benefit (such as cycleways that can also be used by pedestrians).

Due to the varied nature of the individual projects and the range of transport modes benefitting, it is not possible to place a precise figure on the amount of Local Sustainable Transport Fund grant being spent directly on walking. However, the latest annual report for this programme suggests that around 20% of the funding in 2012/13 was spent on projects that directly benefitted walkers. We can therefore assume that between financial years 2010/11 and 2014/15, approximately £120m will be spent on schemes that directly benefit walkers. This is a conservative estimate that does not consider projects where pedestrians are the secondary beneficiaries of a scheme, or projects that are 100% focussed on walking (such as Durham County Council’s ‘Walk to Schools outreach’ programme, which is receiving £4.8m in funding).

In addition to this, all cities in receipt of the Department’s Cycling Ambition grant programme needed to demonstrate how their proposed designs would benefit walkers as well as cyclists. To support this, the Department worked with the Department of Health to make £1.2m in funding available to ensure walking is considered alongside the wider Cycling Ambition Grant programme. This funding has been shared between Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester and Norwich.

Local authorities are also welcome to participate in the Department’s School Award Scheme, operated by Modeshift. This scheme promotes walking and cycling to schools and is benefitting from £840,000 between 2014 and 2016.

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