York humiliated over failure to deliver on walking and cycling schemes (Image: Supplied) YORK’S rating on delivering ‘active travel’ walking and cycling schemes has been humiliatingly downgraded by a government agency – meaning it will be harder for the city to attract funding in future.
Last summer every council in England had to complete a ‘self-assessment’ on its progress on active travel. City of York Council gave itself a ‘glowing’ rating of 3 out of 4, says the York Cycle Campaign.
“But since then Active Travel England – the Government agency responsible for making walking, wheeling and cycling the preferred choice for everyone to get around – has demoted York to level 1 (second from bottom of the five possible levels),” a spokesperson for the campaign group said.
“As a result the city is now severely limited in the active travel funding the council is eligible to apply for and the type of projects they are expected to be capable of.”
In a letter from Active Travel England understood to have been received by the council on February 7 inviting it to bid for a fourth round of active travel funding, it was suggested that York would be likely to get just £367,000.
The maximum it can bid for is 1.3 million, Yok Cycle Campaign says – and it is very unlikely to get that.
Higher-rated councils, however, are likely to be able to bid for ambitious walking and cycling projects costing tens of millions of pounds. York Cycle Campaign members at York Minster last […]
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