Image: DfT/Active Travel England
Local authorities are to receive a share of nearly £33m to create skilled active travel workforces, as part of efforts to ‘make places truly walkable and cyclable for everyone’.
The funding, which comes from Active Travel England, could see up to 1,300 new green jobs created across England.
The Capability Fund will support local authorities across the country to train and retain local engineers and planners. The aim is to develop a workforce able to ‘collaborate effectively with local communities and conduct high-quality engagement and consultation sessions’.
The multi-million-pound investment will also deliver specialised training, ‘driving up skills and ensuring consistent, high-quality schemes can be delivered’.
Jesse Norman, active travel minister, said: “Leaving the car and walking and cycling instead is an easy way to get fit, save money and reduce your carbon footprint.
“Better designed schemes, which take into account the views of local people will help deliver improvements that have widespread local support.
“Skills training and local community engagement will help local authorities to make active travel an attractive choice for getting around.”
Examples of activities which could receive funding are:
- bespoke training for local authority officers and local councillors
- development of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs)
- network design and planning
- feasibility studies
- public engagement/consultation and co-design
- data and evidence collection
Chris Boardman, national active travel commissioner, said: “If we want millions more people to walk, wheel and cycle to schools, shops and workplaces, we need to give them what they need to make the switch.
“Delivering schemes that offer an attractive choice takes technical skill, local knowledge, and community involvement.
“Survey after survey has shown people want the choice to be able to use the car a bit less and would love their kids to have more transport independence, so we aim to ensure they are at the heart of creating the right solution for their area.
“2023 is the year Active Travel England will start to make that happen.”
Perhaps we should ask why these people don’t already exist in local authorities. After all “Travel Plans” have “had sustainable travel at their heart” for decades. The problem is not the skills of engineers, but the will of politicians to actually carry out sustainable travel initiatives. Of course, some authorities are well ahead on this but get lambasted by car-centric media for being anti-car.
For those authorities wishing to catch-up then certainly this training will be well overdue. And whilst the training is going on then implement an authority-wide default of 20mph to give them a far better foundation of lower prevailing speeds to use their newly acquired skills.
Rod King, Lymm
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