Labour Announces £600m Boost for Cycling and Walking in England, Criticizes Conservative Transport Policy
Labour has announced an investment of more than £600 million for new cycling and walking schemes across England, signaling a significant shift in transport policy.
Lilian Greenwood, the Department for Transport minister for road safety and active travel, criticized the Conservative government's culture-war messaging, which she said inflames tensions between road users and harms overall safety.
Under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Conservatives have moved away from Boris Johnson’s promotion of cycling toward restricting active-travel measures. They have framed transport policy as prioritising motorists, often employing conspiracy-theory rhetoric about limits on driving.
Road safety statistics underscore the urgency, with around 1,600 fatalities and 29,500 serious injuries recorded in the UK last year. These figures have remained largely unchanged for about a decade.
Greenwood emphasized that 90% of collisions involve a driver making a bad decision. She called for fostering a culture of mutual respect among all road users to reduce crashes.
Labour's unprecedented funding aims to support walking, cycling, and wheeling, and advocacy groups have urged the government to include explicit targets in its strategy. Greenwood welcomed the public consultation as a genuine opportunity to listen to concerns.
Greenwood, who chaired the transport select committee from 2017 to 2020, highlighted the necessity of a proper road safety strategy, criticizing the previous government for failing to address these issues effectively.
She stressed that many people use multiple transport modes in their daily journeys and that the goal is not to wage a war on motorists but to create a system that makes travel safer, easier, and more affordable for everyone.
