This paper provides a summary of evidence on changes in cycling and physical activity in six towns following the first phase of the Cycling England / Department for Transport Cycling Demonstration Town investment programme between October 2005 and March 2009. The towns involved in the first phase of the Cycling Demonstration Towns programme were Aylesbury, Brighton & Hove, Darlington, Derby, Exeter and Lancaster with Morecambe.
The initial competition for funding invited bids from towns with a population of approximately 100,000. The towns selected for funding were chosen from applications by 31 local authorities, on the basis of three principal characteristics: the ambition of their programme to increase short urban trips by bike; the commitment and involvement of senior members and officers; and the commitment by the local authority to match-fund the CE central grant.
The towns received funding of £500,000 per year (approximately £5 per head of population per year), starting in October 2005, and matched by the respective local authorities so that the total level of investment in cycling was at least £10 per head per year. This represented a substantially higher level of investment than the English local authority average, which, at the beginning of the programme, was closer to roughly £1 per head per year. All of the towns implemented a range of wider initiatives with the potential to increase cycling levels, beyond those that were directly funded by the Cycling Demonstration Towns programme.
Taken together, all data appear to show a consistent picture of an increase in cycling for the Cycling Demonstration Town programme as a whole, and for the towns individually. Cycle levels have a +27% unweighted mean, relative to baseline (2005-2009). Manual cycle counts show a +4% per year.
The potential benefits to health arising from the increase in the prevalence of cycling amongst adults do not appear to have been offset by a reduction in other forms of physical activity. Encouragingly, greatest levels of change in physical activity levels appear to have occurred amongst middle and older age groups, who are the most likely to derive health benefits from physical activity.
Meanwhile, comparator data suggests that the increase in cycling in the Cycling Demonstration Towns is unlikely to be simply a reflection of some wider national trend. What we are able to conclude is that a sustained and well-designed programme of investment in cycling at about the level of £10 per head of population was sufficient, in every one of the Cycling Demonstration Towns, to achieve an increase in cycling.
It is worth emphasising that this is in some ways a surprising conclusion. It is commonly supposed that past failure to increase cycling levels is proof that it is not possible to increase cycling in Britain. In fact, the Cycling Demonstration Towns have demonstrated, in every case, that it is possible to increase cycling, even in towns which almost completely lack a ‘cycling culture’. Several of the towns might have been considered challenging places to encourage cycling because they are hilly. High car ownership levels in Aylesbury might similarly have been thought likely to make it difficult to increase cycling. But neither of these disadvantages seems to have prevented these towns from increasing cycling levels.
The figures reported here are interim results, and further results will be reported during the current (second) phase of investment in the six Cycling Demonstration Towns.
Nevertheless, the evidence we have already firmly suggests that a determination to increase cycling levels, coupled with a carefully considered strategy and modest investment, may be expected to increase cycling levels by between 10% and 50% within a short period of just a few years, in towns that start with ‘typical’ (relatively low) initial cycling levels.
At the programme level, the analysis carried out to date suggests that the investment in the Cycling Demonstration Towns provided good value for money. For each £1 invested, the value of decreased mortality is £2.59. The overall benefit-cost ratio is likely to be greater than this when a full WebTAG appraisal is completed. However, the decreased mortality benefits alone put the CDT programme in the ‘high’ category in terms of value for money.
The programmes carried out between 2005 and 2008 in the six Cycling Demonstration Towns can in no way be considered to have transformed conditions for cycling to the point where they are as good as in the most ‘cycle friendly’ European towns and cities. There is a great deal more work still to do. But the evidence from the results of the first three years suggests that a start has been made – in brief, that the six