HC Deb 23 January 1984 vol 52 cc382-3W
Mr. Steen

asked the Secretary of State for Transport when he will announce the results of his assessment of the proposals for large scale urban cycle schemes which were submitted to his Department in 1983.

Mrs. Chalker

In our cycling policy statement we originally proposed to undertake one or two large scale urban cycling schemes to examine the effect on cycling demand of developing a continuous urban route or network. We have now selected five schemes from the ten submitted to us;

  • Stockton—Cleveland county council
  • Canterbury—Kent county council
  • Bedford/Kempston—Bedfordshire county council
  • Nottingham—Nottinghamshire county council
  • Exeter—Devon county council
and we are discussing with the local authorities the possibility of implementing them on the basis that the Department will fund through its research programme 50 per cent. of the implementation costs, and all the monitoring costs. The monitoring will be undertaken by the transport and road research laboratory.