New Hope for Cycling in Oxford?

County Council backs Gilligan and active travel

27 November 2018

On 6 November Oxfordshire County Council carried this motion nem con (49 votes to 0) . The motion was proposed by Cllr Suzanne Bartington after her original motion was amended to incorporate a separate motion from Cllr Paul Buckley which was itself then withdrawn.

This Council recognises our ambition to achieve economic growth whilst improving the health and wellbeing of communities in Oxfordshire. Active travel provides an effective mechanism to achieve such goals, with potential to co-deliver multiple social, environmental and economic benefits. This council recognises in LTP4 the importance of investment in sustainable transport and shares the Government’s Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy ambition to double cycling by 2025. Accepting Andrew Gilligan’s recent recommendations to the National Infrastructure Commission into and within Oxford, it now wishes to accelerate progress towards this goal. This Council therefore calls upon the Cabinet Member for Environment to:

i. Apply Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) to agree a prioritised and costed Strategic Active Travel Network (SATN), building on work of the Oxfordshire Cycle Network.
ii. Actively seek capital and revenue funding for SATN delivery through local and national sources.
iii. Assess what co-benefits could be gained by allocating a fraction of local transport funds to active travel infrastructure (e.g. 5 or 10%) following best practice examples.
iv. Influence the Planning Authorities’ use of planning powers more proactively and effectively to achieve beneficial active travel outcomes.
v. Establish a framework to oversee quality control of all active travel infrastructure projects in accordance with the Oxfordshire Cycling Design Standards, from inception through planning to implementation, ensuring all proposals are audited for safety and encouragement of active travel.
vi. Use innovative data sources and technologies to identify active travel patterns and latent demand, and to monitor and increase effectiveness of interventions.

Cllr Bartington is the nominated Cycling Champion for Oxfordshire CC. The Gilligan Report “Running out of Road – Investing in cycling in Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford” was prepared for the National Infrastructure Commission. It re-states best practice and recommends spending £150m on cycling infrastructure in Oxford alone. You can read the report here.