On 12 August 2013, David Cameron joined with Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Jody Cundy to announce a new government ambition to kick-start “a cycling revolution which will remove the barriers for a new generation of cyclists.” On 31 July 2015, the Infrastructure Act was passed, which placed a legal requirement for the Government to produce a Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. This is all promising stuff, and so it would be reasonable to expect this commitment to be supported by suitable levels of funding. The Government’s latest Spending Review has just been published, so we thought we’d take a look to see what it has in store for cycling.

Unfortunately, the reality fails to match the previous rhetoric. The headline news is that for areas outside of London, more than £300 million has been allocated to cycling investment between 2015-16 and 2020-21. This includes delivering the existing commitment of £114 million for the Cycle Ambition City scheme. In their report, ‘Get Britain Cycling‘, the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group recommended that the Government create a cycling budget of at least £10 per person per year, increasing to £20. The current allocation of £300 million over 5 years equates to just under £1 per person per year. Even if this were to be on top of local authority spending, it would only equate to around £2 per person per year, which is well below the amount needed to deliver the Government’s commitment to double cycling levels and reduce the number of people killed and injured on the roads.

There is more bad news for cycling later in the Spending Review. The Chancellor indicates that “the government remains concerned about the growth of salary sacrifice arrangements and is considering what action, if any, is necessary. The government will gather further evidence, including from employers, on salary sacrifice arrangements to inform its approach”. The Cycle to Work Scheme is one of the most popular salary sacrifice schemes, where employees can make tax savings of up to 42% of the value of a new bike and safety accessories used for cycling to work. Thousands of cyclists have benefited from the scheme since it was launched and while not all have used their bike to cycle to and from work, the health benefits of using a bike regardless of journey purpose must surely outweigh the tax that is foregone by the Treasury.

This is a disappointing Spending Review for cycling and it means that Spokes will have to fight even harder to secure the funding that is needed to improve cycling infrastructure in West Berkshire.