Shrewsbury short-listed to become cycling town

Shrewsbury is one of 19 towns from across England to be short-listed in a national competition to award “Cycling Town” status.

Out of these 19, only 11 will be selected this summer to become cycling towns. These will receive substantial funding to improve facilities for cycling, making it easier for children and adults to cycle for everyday journeys.

If Shrewsbury was selected it would benefit from around £1.7 million of grant funding from Cycling England over the next three years. This funding will be used to improve cycle routes to schools and workplaces across the town, and to make it easier to cycle into and around the town centre.

Safer cycle routes will be complemented with a package of training and promotional activities, many focused around schools and workplaces. This will include improved information on cycling opportunities, more cycle training, free cycle maintenance to get old bikes back on the road, bike loan schemes and cycle events.

John Everall, Shropshire County Council’s Cabinet member for environment and sustainability, said: ”This is a great opportunity to get significant investment to provide safer cycle facilities in Shrewsbury, enabling more children and adults to enjoy cycling and improve their health and fitness. The project will also improve routes for pedestrians and help to reduce the number of cars on our roads”.

The bid has been put forward by Shropshire County Council and is supported by a number of partners including Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and Shropshire County Primary Care Trust.

Further information

The Cycling Towns programme is being run by Cycling England, which is an independent national expert body set up by the Department for Transport and charged by the Government with delivering programmes to get “more people cycling, more safely, more often”

Shrewsbury is one of 19 towns short-listed from 74 applicants.

Shrewsbury already has relatively high levels of cycling compared to many towns and cities in the UK, with around 7% of journeys to school and work being made by cycle, compared to a national average of less than 3%. With the benefit of the cycling town funding the aim would be to double the amount of cycling, and achieve the levels of cycling experienced in towns like York and Oxford, and some continental towns.

19 May 2008