A ring fenced grant of £1.5m has been given to Brighton and Hove City Council to spend on projects to encourage people to ditch their cars and use greener forms of transport.
The money, which cannot be spent on capital projects such as cycle lanes or anything except promoting sustainable transport, is in addition to almost half a million pounds already given for a similar project in East Brighton.
The new grant will be spent over three years on schemes such as advising people struggling with the cost of travelling on cheaper options, promoting the new bike share project, helping low paid people build their own bikes, and cycling and bike maintenance training.
Councillor Gill Mitchell, chair of the environment, transport and sustainability committee said: “This funding recognises the council’s commitment to helping families, workers, students and visitors to choose travel options other than the car. This in turn reduces congestion, improves bus journey times and brings health benefits along with cleaner air for everyone in Brighton & Hove. The project will help people to access work and training, which will contribute to the local economy, and make Brighton & Hove a successful and prosperous city as we move into the 2020’s.”
The city’s acting director of public health Peter Wilkinson said: “This award is great news for the health and wellbeing of our residents. As well as supporting access to employment and education, it will help Brighton & Hove to be a more active city. Promoting walking and cycling as an easy option will have benefits not only for physical health, but also for mental health and wellbeing.”
The grant was welcomed by Brighton Kempton MP Simon Kirby, who said: “This is great news for Brighton and Hove. Many more people will be encouraged to cycle and walk to work thanks to this Government investment.”
The focus of the scheme, which is expected to reach 10,000 people a year, is to remove some of the barriers which can prevent people from getting a job and accessing skills training.
The idea is also to promote travel which improves air quality, reduces congestion and improves physical and mental health.
The Brighton & Hove Access for Sustainable Travel Project is being funded by the Department for Transport via its Access Fund for Sustainable Travel, with money ring-fenced for local sustainable transport projects. It cannot be spent on other things in the city.
The council successfully bid for the funding in a competitive process which was open to all transport authorities in England, excluding London.
I’m all for decreasing the number of cars in Brighton but without more cycle lanes it’s unlikely the number of people cycling will increase. I hardly feel safe in a car in Brighton let alone on a bike. Various parts of the city has illegal levels of pollution and this could be partly addressed by using low or zero emissions public transport – almost all buses and taxis are still diesel – and encouraging the use of electric cars. A tenth of that £1.5m could provide the area with a comprehensive vehicle charging network instead of the token charge points the city currently has.
So what will be the success criteria for the £1.5m spend?
Gill Mitchell has great environmental aims, but if little is actually achieved, other than encouraging even more visitors and businesses to avoid the city and go elsewhere, then perhaps this continual throwing public money at projects in the “hope” of improvements should stop.
We remember all the money wasted by her predecessor on the Old Shoreham Road and the Edward Street cycle lanes!
Those wishing to cycle already do, apart from children growing up and starting to cycle.
Second hand bikes are affordable.
The unis. and other groups already provide this service, alongside the free training, and fixing bikes free and showing people how to use the tools themselves.
More wasted money with little fresh outcomes.
Councillors are deaf and blind when it comes to imposing their will upon the people of the city “YOU WILL RIDE BIKES”. Can’t they get it into their skulls that we have reached saturation point with those who want to ride?
It is neither practical nor is it safe for the bikes and cars and buses and other vehicles to all share such a tiny road area as it is in a tiny town built upon 7 hills.
What would have been better would have been to get a lot of four wheel bikes with room for shopping and extra seats on them, and then all of us who cannot or never have ridden bikes can have a go!
Now that would have been an innovation!
Oh for goodness sakes, what a waste of time and money. Pointless excercise with absolutely no mention of success criteria – what will have changed for this project to have been a success? 1.5mil is not a pittance and i don’t give a monkeys whether it’s a ringfenced grant or not – it has come from taxpayers so we ARE paying for it.
I want to cycle more, i want to be able to cycle to the station every day – i tried to get a secure bike shelter built near me because several of us in my rd have half decent bikes that we can’t leave out in the rain with the risk of them being nicked, but my tiny typical terraced house offers no area to conveniently store a bike or option to bring it in and out each day. However it could not be done apparently. So My bike is in storage, and i drive because it is the only way I can get to work because the trains are too unreliable and i am blown if i am spending money on a bus to get to a station then take pot luck on whether any trains are running on time that day.
Not everyone cycles round at leisure up and down the hills of Brighton. Perhaps others are not fit enough, disabled/elderly, travelling with a heavy load or a 2nd person or needs to use a car for work.
Got cash to splash?
Sort the trains out
Sort the trains out
Sort the trains out
Sort the trains out
Sort the trains out
Sort the trains out