As the late comedian Ken Dodd would say: Well, Missus, I am most “discombobulated”.
In my case I am discombobulated to discover an uncomfortable fact about our
leading cycling organisation, Cycling UK.
Those defenders of cyclists’ rights, those leading campaigners to make the roads safer, who tirelessly lobby government to fund cycling adequately – in vain - seldom challenge Local Authorities who build unsafe cycling infrastructure.
But around the corner you may suddenly find a hazard; a bus stop in the Kingston cycle lane (photo below); telephone boxes;
the cycle lane ends with no warning; switches to across a busy road; and worst of all, the cheap option, cycle lanes on pavements in built-up areas when this facility was only ever intended for inter-modal routes.
The irony is that if ever government coughed up the £billions needed for a national cycling policy, it will be the dodgy LA’s who will do the work, the very people who make a pig’s ear of the small offerings we have to contend with.
And yet these rogues are continuously allowed to get with it unchallenged by Britain’s leading cycling organisation.
This makes me so angry. And confused. Because over the years I have
sensed the passion various campaign chiefs have brought to the task of
promoting cycling –the many reports on health benefits, economical benefits and
so on.
And I have felt their anger at government prevarication, the stalling, and
the false promises.
So it follows they must be as frustrated as Hell because not only is
government fucking them about, so are many local authorities. They may be well intentioned but with no proper understanding of what is required
When a few weeks ago this blog tore Kingston upon Thames to shreds over their building of bus stop cycle lanes – where bus passengers alight straight into the path of cyclists - I said I felt sure that Cycling UK will surely have complained to Kingston.
At one bus stop Kingston did get it right, with the cycle lane curving round and out of the way of where passengers alight. But as in the case of the bus stop illustrated above, they simply just drove the cycle lane right through it.
Cycling UK, I have discovered, have not so much as written a letter in protest.
What’s more their excellent bi-monthly magazine Cycle has never carried a story about the Kingston shambles, nor any shoddy work by any Local Authority, if memory serves me.
A picture story would suffice with a caption saying beware, your life may be in danger using this or that cycle lane.
Why is there only ever cosy news such as the story on the new Cambridge traffic island built in the cycle friendly Dutch style? Good to see this, of course.
But, come on, let’s have some balance.
So what’s going on? What’s the problem?
Because Cycling UK staff were working from home, like many people are
during the pandemic, it’s been hard to track anyone down.
Eventually a fellow journo gave me a contact and I was able to put the
64,000 dollar question.
Why do they not grab the LAs by the balls?
Do Cycling UK have any partnerships to promote cycling that might make criticism difficult – such as Grant Application Partnerships?
“No”, they do not have Grant Application Partnerships, a spokesman firmly told me. “Of course, we do have partnerships with various authorities to deliver programmes but that never has and never would prevent us from criticising an authority if we feel the need to do so.”
So why can't they tackle these misfits?
The answer is Cycling UK don’t have the financial resources necessary to go after Local Authorities!
So as well as being mad at the world I’m now both mad and sad. Sad that the defenders of cyclists’ rights are unable to take up the fight with local authorities who mess up.
Duncan Dollimore , Head of Campaigns, explained.
“To answer your specific question, no, I
haven’t spoken to Kingston about this, and I’m almost certain that nobody else
has spoken to them. In an ideal world, we would have more conversations with
local authorities about inadequate infrastructure, but I’d need a much larger
team of campaigners to have those conversations with every local authority
across the UK about every scheme which doesn’t meet the required standards.
"That’s one of the reasons why we’ve been trying to build up a local campaign network, and better equip and support local people to raise issues locally.
"There’s no reluctance on my part to challenge local authorities, and we have done this, but there is an issue with capacity to do it.”
He added: “The good news is that
the Government are planning to create a new inspectorate, Active Travel
England, which will have oversight of standards around new infrastructure –
withholding future funding if schemes do not meet required standards. They
announced this in July, and the months seem to be passing without any sign of
actual delivery of this commitment, but we are expecting this inspectorate to
be up and running early next year.”
So there you have it.
They don’t have the resources for what
is really vital work.
But why didn’t they say. Why have they
not told us, the members, and the transport world at large?
Who knows, there might be some rich benefactor out there.
OK, we now know get why Cycling UK seldom directly tackle Local Authorities over such matters. As Dollimore explains, it is a question of money to employ a team to do so.
That in itself indicates how bad the situation.
Sam Jones of Cycling UK press office explained further.
“As a small national charity, it’s not possible for us tackle every single bit of egregious cycling infrastructure we hear about. Instead Cycling UK has focused on the problem behind the mistakes, namely the lack of national design standards, which now we have in England outside of London (and Wales). These standards will ensure councils don’t waste their money on inferior infrastructure, and will also allow local campaigners to challenge substandard work if they do encounter it.
“This isn’t to say Cycling UK is ignoring the problem of poor local infrastructure. We’ve just had to focus on where we can make the biggest difference with our resources. So instead of battling it out at micro level, we’ve geared ourselves to provide the support and tools to local campaigners to challenge the problems they encounter, such as newly launched Cycling Advocacy Network.”
To this I have to say there is in fact a perfectly good design
guide. It’s been available since 1996!
It’s entitled: “Cycle-Friendly Infrastructure - Guidelines for Planning
and Design.”
It was approved by the DoT (now DfT), the Bicycle Association, the CTC,
and the Institution of Highways and Transportation. But universally ignored by
Local Authorities.
Every LA in England has a copy gathering dust on a shelf, unless it was chucked out. It's a known fact that local highway chiefs think they know better.
Leaving it to local Cycling UK groups to engage in these matters will
only go so far.
If the experience of my local group is anything to go by – and they include a professional engineer - planners listen for a while; go through the motions of listening, then out of the blue put down another crap facility without consulting anyone.
So Cycling UK need to get out the knives.
Just as they did when the Royal Borough of Windsor
and Maidenhead threatened Velolife Cafe over the planning application for their
premises. When was that, now? Last year, the year before?
Can’t recall. Time flies.
That was a nasty issue which saw the café owner and
cyclists stopping there threatened with legal action for just
meeting for a ride.
We
may never know what drove the council to threaten this course of action, but it
was all nonsense.
After a bitter struggle the council eventually backed down, climbed out of the hole they had dug for themselves and apologised to the café owner. But it took a lot of legal pressure from the combined forces of CYCLING UK and the racing organisation, British Cycling, and their legal team, Leigh Day.
We know that Cycling UK have teeth.
They
really need to bite the Local Authorities.
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