Lib Dem rebellion over lack of investment plan for walking and cycling

The call for investment to rise was in a report authored by Professor Phil Goodwin, pictured launching it at Landor Links` Cycle City Expo

The call for investment to rise was in a report authored by Professor Phil Goodwin, pictured launching it at Landor Links` Cycle City Expo

A backbench Lib Dem rebellion has been launched to require a walking and cycling investment plan alongside the Government's road investment plan.

Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert said that the £241m recently announced by the Deputy Prime Minister for cycling is the biggest single investment in cycling ever, this "still falls short of what we really need".

The co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group urged - in a report announced at Landor Links' Cycle City Expo - that investment in cycling should increase to £10 per head per year, and later convinced his Lib Dem colleagues to adopt this as the party's policy. Writing in the Liberal Democrat Voice website today, he says that the Infrastructure Bill currently before Parliament "is an opportunity to require a cycling and walking investment strategy".

Huppert, MP for Cambridge, has tabled an amendment to be debated in the Commons on Monday that would do this. He claims a long list of supporters, from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport to the Richmond Group of health bodies ranging from the British Heart Foundation to Rethink Mental Illness.

The MP pointedly says that "when Norman Baker was cycling minister we were gradually able to persuade the Government to start taking [cycling] seriously," possibly suggesting that its importance has since diminished - although he praises Clegg's extra cash for the Cycle City Ambition grant recipients.

Debate this at Smarter Travel.