Cycling allowance
Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Liverpool City Council have signed a formal agreement at the Merseyside Transport Partnership’s (MTP) annual conference setting out their commitment to increasing cycling levels in the city. The alliance aims to improve quality of life and create a healthy, low carbon city for the future.
Gideon Ben-Tovim, Chair of Liverpool PCT, and Cllr Peter Millea, Liverpool City Council’s Executive Member for Assets & Development, signed the agreement to make Liverpool a Cycling City.
The City partners now hope that others will join the alliance so that Merseyside councils and PCTs can work with businesses, universities and cultural and sporting agencies to bring renewed commitment to cycling.
The agreement sets out to generate a 10 percent increase in trips made by bike before the end of March 2011, compared to journeys in 2006. Working together, MTP (through the TravelWise programme), Liverpool PCT and Liverpool City Council aim to secure support from more than 100 organisations over the remainder of Year of the Environment and during the city’s Year of Health and Wellbeing 2010. Delegates at the Merseyside Transport Conference were among the first to sign up to the agreement.
Cllr Peter Millea stressed that cycling can help create a greener and healthier city. He said: “This agreement enables us to pool our resources, enabling investment to work on a number of levels, which will jointly benefit the city’s health and wellbeing, help tackle congestion and help improve our environment.
“The City Council is already investing in our cycling infrastructure and Liverpool PCT and MTP both work very hard to promote cycling. However, if we are serious about creating a true cycling culture, the sort that has brought huge benefits to other European cities, we really do need to work together. And what better time to launch this initiative, as we celebrate the final months of Year of the Environment and look ahead to Year of Health and Wellbeing 2010?”
He added: “Reducing the number of car journeys is crucial to cutting congestion and making our roads safer for everyone. The region’s TravelWise campaigns are centred on persuading people out of their cars in favour of cycling, walking or catching the bus.
“Cycling is not only one of the healthiest ways to travel, it is also the greenest and one of the most accessible modes of transport around. Almost 70 percent of trips are less than 5km long; if more of these short trips were made by bike, I am confident we would see healthier people and a more attractive city with less congestion on our roads and improved air quality.”
Gideon Ben-Tovim believes that increasing cycling rates has great potential to help improve the city’s health and fitness levels. He said: “Liverpool’s rates of obesity are higher than the UK average and rising car usage is a major factor in reducing physical activity. We believe our commitment to Liverpool Cycle City is a key element in helping to improve our city’s health and wellbeing.
“Living an active lifestyle is one of the most effective ways to reduce obesity and conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. It’s clear that by encouraging more cycling, which can be one of the easiest forms of physical activity to incorporate into our everyday lives, we can help people to stay fit and healthy.”
This commitment from Liverpool City Council and the city’s transport and health leaders follows recent news that Liverpool Lime Street Station is to receive Government funding to become one of the country’s 10 new fully supervised ‘cycle hubs’. As part of the initiative, the station will offer secure, covered parking for bikes as well as a cycle hire scheme and information and repair services and improved bike access to and from stations.
Earlier this year £550,000 was awarded to the Liverpool Cycling Strategy by the North West ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) for schemes such as Cycle Speke, a major project designed to encourage local people to cycle more and to help employers actively promote cycling to work.
