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Bikeability gets extra money

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Bikeability, the cycling proficiency training scheme for children, is to receive an extra £2m of funding in the next two financial years as the government seeks to get more children cycling. The move follows evidence collated for the Department of Transport that higher levels of Bikeability funding does result in increases in cycling to secondary school.

The extra money will allocated in each of the years 2013/14 and 2014/15; approximately £700,000 in 2013/14 and £1.3m in 2014/15. Spend of £11m has already been allocated for Bikeability in these financial years. The extra two million will take spend on Bikeability to £24m over those two years with additional local contributions worth around £11.5m expected over the next three years.

Bikeability awards for 2012/13

For this financial year, the government has announced what local authorities, projects and schools will be getting the £11m of funding for 2012/13.

Grants awarded for Bikeability schemes include Merseytravel, who are receiving over £400,000, Hampshire, where children will benefit from almost £500,000 worth of training, Staffordshire receiving more than £350,000 and Kent, where total funding is over £380,000.

A full breakdown of the allocations by Local Authority and school is available here.

Cycling to School report

This morning, the Department of Transport has also published a report (Cycling to School - A review of school census and Bikeability delivery data) looking at the number of children cycling to school since the introduction of the Bikeability scheme five years ago.

This report shows that where there is a longer history of delivering cycle training, a higher proportion of children are cycling to secondary school. However, this is almost matched by a very small decline in the proportion of primary school children cycling to school.

Importantly authorities that have received higher levels of Bikeability funding have seen larger increases in cycling to secondary school.

The report recommends that further analysis should be undertaken to identify other local authorities where there appears to be a link between cycling to secondary schools and delivery of Bikeability training in primary schools.

The report can be found here.


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