A key industry body has said the Government’s announcement of £7m to promote safe cycling fails to address the fundamental safety issue of potholes and deteriorating road surfaces.
Howard Robinson, chief executive the Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA), highlighted that around 50 cyclists a year are killed or seriously injured (KSI) in Britain in incidents ’caused by poor or defective road surfaces’ according to government figures.
In a parliamentary written answer last year former transport minister Andrew Jones said: ‘There were 99 pedal cyclist KSIs (killed or seriously injured casualties) in reported road accidents allocated the contributory factor “Poor or Defective road surface” on local roads (for England) or all non-motorway roads (for Scotland and Wales) from 2014 to 2015.’
This week cycling minister Jesse Norman announced that the Government will give eight existing Cycle City Ambition cities £6.5m for a range of projects to improve road safety and help create more bike-friendly areas. It will also provide £500,000 to support the Cycling UK Big Bike initiative to get more people cycling safely.
In response, Mr Robinson said: ‘The Government’s own figures state that 100 cyclists a year are killed or seriously injured due to accidents caused by poor or defective road surfaces. This is the issue that needs to be addressed.
‘Cyclists are among our more vulnerable road users. For them, the continued deterioration of local road surfaces can result in death or serious, life-changing injuries. Initiatives to get more people cycling are to be welcomed but the Government needs to invest in the provision of a well-maintained road network that is safe to for them to use.’
Mr Robinson pointed to the latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey, which found that to address the backlog of potholes and restore the local road network to a satisfactory condition would take 13 years and cost over £12bn.
He added: ‘Before making headline grabbing announcements the Government should provide real levels of investment in road maintenance to ensure that cyclists have a safe road surface to cycle on.’
The new funding comes from the Government’s cycle safety review, which Mr Norman launched last September following the conviction of cyclist Charlie Alliston, who knocked over and killed pedestrian Kim Briggs.
At that time, the Department for Transport (DfT) said that the first phase of the review would analyse the case for creating a new offence equivalent to causing death or serious injury by careless or dangerous driving ‘to help protect both cyclists and pedestrians’, with conclusions from this phase ‘expected to be reported in the New Year’. A DfT spokesperson was not able to state when this would occur.
The eight cities that have been invited to bid for the £6.5m safety cash are Bristol, Leeds, Cambridge, Birmingham, Norwich, Manchester, Newcastle and Oxford.