Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on improving active travel routes to encourage use for leisure activities.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Officials from the Department and Active Travel England work closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Sport England on these and other matters. I also recently met with Tim Hollingsworth, Chief Executive of Sport England, to discuss future opportunities for joint working. The Government’s latest round of active travel funding, managed by Active Travel England, has supported £200 million worth of active travel routes in both urban and rural areas. The funding allocations were announced on 19 May and are available online, at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-people-to-benefit-from-200-million-to-improve-walking-and-cycling-routes .https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-people-to-benefit-from-200-million-to-improve-walking-and-cycling-routes
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to help ensure that the requirements of design standard CD195, Designing for cycle traffic, are applied in all National Highways regions.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
National Highways is committed to support all road users including walkers, cyclists and horse-riders. Its research and feedback, combined with insight from others such as Transport Focus, helps NH to understand how its services and roads may need to evolve to meet the needs of customers.
CD 195 Designing for Cycle Traffic is one of a suite of documents that National Highways has to ensure the most appropriate provision is provided for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. National Highways are working with Active Travel England to ensure the design standards referenced are applied wherever practical, supporting the delivery of active travel provision across the network.
All National Highways schemes are required to follow the GG142 Walking, Cycling and Horse-Riding Assessment and Review Process. This process enables designers to determine the most appropriate and proportionate type of facility for their scheme. This could be in the form of dedicated cycle provision designed to CD 195 Designing for Cycle Traffic, or it could be shared use walking and cycling facilities designed to CD 143 Designing for walking, cycling and horse-riding. As much of National Highways’ network is rural and located away from residential and industrial areas, providing shared use walking and cycling provision may often be a more proportionate approach for the anticipated levels of usage.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of whether he will meet his target to increase the proportion of short journeys that are walked or cycled in towns and cities to 46% by 2025.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government’s most recent assessment of this was set out in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy report to Parliament in July 2022, a copy of which is available in the House Libraries. The Department will provide an updated assessment in its next report to Parliament in due course.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to support local planning authorities to help tackle regional health inequalities through (a) active travel facilities, (b) access to healthcare and (c) other infrastructure.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Tackling health disparities is at the heart of the Government's ambitions for Levelling Up. Through the Levelling Up White Paper, we have set out our mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy between areas.
The National Planning Policy Framework expects local planning authorities to set out a strategy for the provision of sufficient infrastructure which includes community facilities such as hospitals and doctor's surgeries. Planning policies and decisions should plan positively for these, taking into account and supporting the delivery of local strategies to improve health and well-being for all of the community.
With regards to transport the Framework is clear that this is matter that should be considered from the earliest stages of plan-making and development proposals, thereby enabling opportunities to promote walking and cycling to be identified and pursued, including supporting facilities.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure that sustainable transport planning is a priority in building transport infrastructure on new development sites.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that transport issues, including opportunities to promote walking, cycling and public transport, should be considered from the earliest stages of plan-making and when considering development proposals.
As committed in the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, the Government is embedding transport decarbonisation principles in spatial planning and across transport policymaking to ensure that new development is designed in a way that promotes sustainable travel choices. This year, Active Travel England has been established as a statutory consultee in the planning system and will help planning authorities in their work to implement good active travel design. Additionally, the Government is taking forward updates to the Manual for Streets guidance to encourage a more holistic approach to street design which assigns higher priority to the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department are taking to ensure that all people live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space; and what steps she plans to take to measure progress towards that target.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We know that there are significant health and wellbeing benefits to spending time in nature. That is why we announced in our Environmental Improvement Plan in January our intention to work across government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15 minute walk of a blue or green space. We also committed to work in parallel to reduce barriers to access.
Achieving delivery of these cross-government commitments, to bring nature closer to people and reduce barriers to accessing it, is a long-term goal. We are currently focused on developing the right modelling tools and indicators to allow us to accurately measure the baseline, identify where to target efforts and to track future progress, engaging closely with stakeholders as we do so. At the same time, we continue to deliver existing work across Government in this area, such as the Access for All programme, Farming in Protected Landscapes, the Green Infrastructure Framework, the Levelling Up Parks Fund and the Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Strategy.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish his Department's assessment of the likelihood of meeting its objectives for increased active travel under confirmed funding levels for April 2021 to March 2025.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government’s most recent assessment of progress against these and other objectives was set out in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy report to Parliament in July 2022, a copy of which is available in the House Libraries. The Department will provide an updated assessment in its next report to Parliament in due course.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on meeting the targets set out in the cycling and walking plan for England, published on 27 July 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government’s most recent assessment of progress against these and other targets was set out in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy report to Parliament in July 2022, a copy of which is available in the House Libraries. One of the targets in the 2020 Cycling and Walking Plan for England was for 50% of all journeys in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2030. On this, the 2022 report notes that the percentage is currently forecast to be between 41-47% by 2030, but that it could be higher depending on various uncertainties. The percentage rose to 48% in 2020, but this may have been an anomaly as part of the impact of the pandemic.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the commitment in the Environmental Improvement Plan that everyone should live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space, what assessment she has made of the implications for that policy of the proportion of (a) waterways and (b) inland blue space in England that has a statutory right of public access.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We know that there are significant health and wellbeing benefits to spending time in nature. That is why we announced in our Environmental Improvement Plan in January our intention to work across Government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15 minute walk of a blue or green space. We also committed to work in parallel to reduce barriers to access.
Achieving delivery of these cross government commitments, to bring nature closer to people and reduce barriers to accessing it, is a long term goal. We are currently focused on developing the right modelling tools and indicators to allow us to accurately measure the baseline, identify where to target efforts and to track future progress, engaging closely with stakeholders as we do so. At the same time we continue to deliver existing work across Government in this area, such as the Access for All programme, the Green Infrastructure Framework, the Levelling Up Parks Fund and the Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Strategy.
Access on waterways, and other inland blue spaces such as lakes, where there is no established public right of navigation should be arranged with the relevant landowners through local voluntary access agreements, to ensure the interests of all parties concerned are taken into account.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) promote cyclists traveling by train, (b) encourage train operators to provide more capacity for cyclists and (c) improve communication from train operators about travelling with cycles on their services.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to improving integration between rail and other modes of transport to improve journeys for passengers.
The long-term cycling and walking plan of July 2020 set out 33 actions to increase cycling and walking, including improving cycle rail integration and improving bike access on trains. Between 2012 and 2022, the Government provided over £40m to create new secure bike spaces at train stations, and additional supporting features such as CCTV, lighting, ramps and cycle repair stations. In 2021-22 this included £2 million funding for cycling facilities at train stations and £1m for cycling routes to stations.
The Department will continue to work with the Train Operating Companies to ensure that customers have the information they require for their journeys.