Active Travel England (ATE) has published new capability ratings for local authorities, showing improvements among the lowest ranked councils but slow progress overall, with no authority reaching the top level.
All four councils previously given a zero rating for their capability to develop active travel infrastructure have now improved, but the majority of authorities remain in the next lowest category, according to the new data.
Leicestershire, Rutland, West Sussex and Worcestershire councils all stepped up from Level 0 since last year, however none of the 80 authorities that returned the evidenced self-assessment forms achieved the highest rating of Level 4.
This is despite the fact that the ratings are used to guide dedicated active travel funding, with higher rated authorities eligible to access more funding, helping match investment with the capability to use it.
ATE’s Local Authority Active Travel Capability Ratings 2024 published this month assesses each authority’s ability to plan, design and deliver schemes that give more people the option to walk, wheel or cycle for local journeys.
The ratings are:
- Level 0: Little local leadership or support and limited record of delivery
- Level 1: Some local leadership and support with developing plans and isolated interventions
- Level 2: Visible local leadership and support, with emerging network
- Level 3: Strong local leadership and support, substantial network in place with increasing modal share
- Level 4: Dense network in place with a high proportion of trips made by walking, wheeling and cycling. Very supportive leadership and policies to further improve transport choice
Overall, 42 councils ranked in Level 1, 32 were on Level 2 and six were in Level 3. The number of authorities at each level was broadly similar to ATE’s first assessment in March 2023 and no authority moved up by more than one category.
Danny Williams, ATE’s chief executive officer, said: 'Our capability ratings not only recognise the progress being made in active travel across the country; they also help us to target funding. They were used in 2024 allocations, which will enable local authorities to continue to develop their capability to deliver high quality active travel programmes.'
He added that since the first assessment, the executive agency has been working to build capability in authorities through targeted funding, support, training and guidance.
'We also delivered dedicated support to the lowest rated authorities to help them upskill officers and implement action plans,' he said.
ATE describes ratings as assessing authorities’ current effectiveness at taking forward schemes that will support the objectives set out in the national Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, adding that they focus primarily on the three areas of: local leadership; network planning; and delivery.
ATE has used the ratings to calculate authorities’ funding allocations for 2024-25, including the Capability Fund, which provides funding to boost local authorities’ technical capability to deliver high quality schemes.
All local and combined authorities in England outside London were invited to assess their own capability against five levels.
The self-assessment process ran from October to December 2023, after which responses were put through a moderation exercise which considered them against performance information that ATE held to produce a final rating.
The report notes that following feedback from the previous round, the way that self-assessment data was collected was changed to reduce the burden on authorities, and the window for self-assessment evidence to be returned was extended from three to eight weeks.
