Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether local authorities are required to participate in the emergency active travel fund.

The Department’s statutory guidance to local authorities on the management of their road networks in response to COVID-19 strongly encourages them to introduce measures to support more cycling and walking in their areas, but it does not require them to do so. All combined authorities and local transport authorities were allocated funding from the Emergency Active Travel Fund in 2020/21, but there was no obligation on any authority to accept the funding or to introduce active travel schemes: these are decisions for local authorities. The Department plans to write to the same authorities shortly inviting bids for capital funding for active travel schemes to be delivered in 2021/22.