£29 million on offer for England’s first sustainable travel city

The Department for Transport (DfT) wants to help create a model green travel policy for other cities to follow. It hopes that the chosen city – or possibly cities – will introduce innovative new strategies and build on existing efforts to ease congestion, reduce carbon dioxide emissions and increase levels of physical activity in the local area.

The DfT is building on its experience of funding three ‘sustainable travel towns’, to the tune of around £10 million, over the past five years. It says the towns in question – Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester – have seen car use fall by up to nine per cent. This is estimated to equate to a reduction of 53 million miles of car travel and an annual saving of more than 17,000 tonnes of CO2.

Transport Minister Paul Clark said: "Our sustainable travel towns have proved that with the right information and improved facilities we can make a real difference to how people travel [...] The opportunity to become England's first sustainable travel city will be a chance to see these benefits on a much larger scale and I look forward to seeing the bids coming in."

Peter Lipman, policy director at sustainable transport charity Sustrans, said: "The creation of the first sustainable travel city is a good way to build on the experience gained through the sustainable travel demonstration town. The work to encourage more walking, cycling and public transport in the towns led to increases in cycling of 19 per cent and walking of 12 per cent, which shows what potential there is for people to change the way they get around given the right approach and level of commitment.

"This sustainable travel city should be the first of many and given the positive impact on health and climate change of enabling people to travel more actively, we look forward to a rapid roll out."

There are nine areas eligible to bid for the funding – all identified by the DfT as congestion hot-spots. They are: Greater Manchester, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, West of England (Bristol), Nottingham and Leicester.

A spokesperson for the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities said it was too early to comment on whether the area would be making a bid – details of the offer and the bidding timetable are not due to be sent out by the DfT until later this month.

The DfT has already indicated, however, that in return for the funding, it expects the chosen city (or possibly cities) to provide a “significant financial contribution and to build up an evidence base that proves sustainable travel measures are a viable and attractive option for the future”. Up to £29 million is on the table, but the final total funding will depend on the quality of proposals and the size and number of city partners chosen.

Up to £3 million of funding is also being made available for other English local authorities to help them develop their own sustainable travel programmes.

Earlier this year the Welsh Assembly Government and Cardiff Council announced they were jointly investing £28.5 million to make Cardiff the first sustainable travel city in Wales. Sustainable travel measures expected to be implemented there include a free public bike sharing scheme and free bus services looping the city centre every five minutes. If the Cardiff model is seen to be working after two years, the plan is to roll it out to the rest of Wales.

The announcement of England’s first sustainable travel city is expected later this year.