News from Jenny Jones: Biking Borough money ‘pathetically small’, claims Jenny Jones

Abstract: Jenny Jones has called on the Mayor to provide much greater funding for “biking boroughs”, claiming that £25,000 for each of12 boroughs falls far short to that needed

The London Mayor has announced a list of twelve biking boroughs that will each receive £25,000 to examine how to promote cycling. He has previously said that he wants a 400% increase in cycling in London by 2025. The major part of that increase will need to come from cycling scheme in outer London (1).

The London Mayor is investing over £200m on a cycle hire scheme in central London and cycling superhighways for people cycling to work in central London (2). Direct funding from Transport for London for the London Cycle Network, which included 260 unfinished schemes in outer London, was dropped last year (3).

Jenny Jones said:  

“We have a Zone One cycling mayor who is giving a pathetically small amount to promote cycling in Outer London whilst spending over two hundred million pounds on cycling for Inner London. If the London Mayor is serious about promoting cycling he should be giving each borough £25m rather than £25,000. Instead, he has cut direct funding for the London Cycle Network which was a strategic network of cycle lanes connecting town centres and suburbs throughout Outer London.”

Notes to editors

1. The London Mayor has the target of a 400% increase in cycling, but the Transport for London report which proposed this target showed that 80% of the new potential cyclists would have to come from outer London. The Mayor has given a lower figure of 60%.

2. MQT answer 925/2009 in June 09. “The funding for the Cycle Highways Scheme has been increased by an additional £133m to provide an overall budget of £165m.” In answer to question 2729 / 2009 the Mayor gives the total figure for cycle hire as £114m.

3. Analysis of the money provided to the boroughs for the LCN+ shows that a total of 383 schemes have not been funded in the coming year, 260 of them in outer London boroughs, Question to the London mayor No: 2698 / 2008. Total money spent on LCN+ was £33m in 2008/09, but dropped to only £12m in 2009/10. These total figures are divided up between borough roads and the Trans London Road Network (TLRN). The LCN+ expenditure on the borough roads dropped from £20 to £10m, whilst the LCN+ spending on the TLRN drops from £13m to £2m.