Court of Appeal to reconsider ruling on cycle funding cuts in England, with judge citing "real prospect of success"

webbierwrex wrote:

I think we should have some sort of national recognisition (a medal?) for people who commute to school or work for x amount of miles. I can't think of much more an indvidiaul can do to help the government. It saves tax, congestion, enviroment, deaths, NHS, boosts the economy. 

Reminds me of when we clapped for nurses.

I'd rather we stopped mucking around with half-arsed schemes and had properly funded infrastructure that isn't stuck in the 1970s

Don't want any medals but a nice new pair of tyres each year from a grateful government, or maybe a new chain and cassette, wouldn't go amiss…but indeed, the greatest way of showing appreciation for the money saved by cycle commuters would be to spend some of it on infrastructure that meant more people would join in and keep those already converted safe.

Not national, but there are various scheme out there that give rewards for logging active travel. E.g. Betterpoints, Stravel

Pretty sure there are already rewards on offer: saves money, often saves time, travel is more enjoyable (with exceptions...), better health (again - with very rare but significant exceptions...), excuse to buy more bikes and cycling kit (is this right?)

webbierwrex wrote:

I think we should have some sort of national recognisition (a medal?) for people who commute to school or work for x amount of miles. I can't think of much more an indvidiaul can do to help the government. It saves tax, congestion, enviroment, deaths, NHS, boosts the economy. 

I'd be happy just to go out and not have some idiot (or usually several idiots) try to run me off the road with their car so they can get to the nearest MacDonalds (or wherever they're racing to).

Maybe some tax rebate based on number of miles cycled per year (Strava.gov.uk?)

I once heard someone being slightly controversial and suggested "a tax rebate for being healthy (within BMI range, blood pressure, blood results) just being averagely healthy???"

Rather than giving people even more expensive drugs (Wegovy or whatever) at tax payers expense?

Rendel Harris wrote:

... the original judgment was surely correct in saying that the funding commitment was not ringfenced ...

No, that's not correct!

Both the first and second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategies (CWIS1 and CWIS2) consisted of a mix of ringfenced and non-ringfenced funding. Moreover, it was the ringfenced funding to which the previous Government made drastic cuts.

CWIS2 originally included £1,298m of ringfenced funding plus £2,486m of non-ringfenced funding, totalling £3,784m. The Department for Transport (DfT) later discovered that £225m of the ringfenced funding had been double-counted (they had actually spent it in the last year of CWIS1). Hence the ringfenced funding got reduced to £1.073m and the total to £3,559m. These are the numbers shown in figure 1 of CWIS2 (link above - the original funding numbers are set out here).

The additional cuts were made to the ringfenced (or "dedicated") funding - n.b. this was not in dispute between Transport Action Network (TAN) and DfT. TAN's argument was that this "dedicated" funding was the part of CWIS2 that complied with the legal requirement (as set out in subsection 21(3)(b) of the Infrastructure Act 2015) for a CWIS to set out "the financial resources to be made available by the Secretary of State for the purpose of achieving [the objectives of the CWIS]". It would follow from this that this "dedicated" funding could only be "varied" by complying with the legal requirements of subsections 21(5) and 21(6), namely for the Secretary of State to "have regard to the desirability of maintaining certainty and stability in respect of Cycling and Walking Investment Strategies" when considering whether to vary a CWIS, and to "consult such persons as he or she considers appropriate" before actually varying it.

A High Court judge has now ruled that TAN has "a real prospect of success". Moreover, winning this argument really matters, as the current adverse ruling effectively turns section 21 (i.e. the CWIS legislation that various organisations fought hard for) into something pointless and meaningless.

However TAN urgenly needs to raise some SERIOUS additional funding if the case is to go ahead. So please, please donate what you can! 

Regardless only the lawyers win from this kind of thing and it's money the goverment spend they could spend on cycling instead.

But there you go, there wouldn't be a case if the current goverment suddenly restored the money would there.

stonojnr wrote:

Regardless only the lawyers win from this kind of thing and it's money the goverment spend they could spend on cycling instead.
But there you go, there wouldn't be a case if the current goverment suddenly restored the money would there.

Just like the post office spending more on lawyers than on the compensation for the postmasters...

Roger Geffen wrote:

A High Court judge has now ruled that TAN has "a real prospect of success".

As I'm sure you are aware, "a real prospect of success" simply means, in effect, "this case isn't entirely stupid so let's put it to the test". Good luck to you and I hope to be proved wrong but I have my doubts…

Thanks Roger, £40,880 raised so far.  Please give generously.

If Louise Haig wanted to demonstrate her commitment to spending unprecedented amounts on Active Travel, she could reverse this tory cut today and save us having to fight it through the courts.

EDIT: completely ignored by the msm of course.

Completely off topic but I think 'snaps my cranks' is my new favourite niche idiom.