Bulletin - December 2024 - Active Travel Transformation

Purpose

This bulletin provides an Active Travel update following the Scottish Government’s draft Budget for 2025-26, key dates for Active Travel Infrastructure Fund (ATIF) Tier 2, and on progress made to date on both infrastructure and behaviour change programmes.

The bulletin also includes an update on recent engagements undertaken by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and highlights recent publications containing supportive evidence for Active Travel.

Background

The Draft Budget, which is subject to Parliamentary approval, confirms that we will invest £188.7 million to support high quality active travel and bus infrastructure, sustainable travel integration, and behaviour change investment to enable walking, wheeling and cycling for everyday short journeys. Work is underway to assess allocations from within this budget, and investment will be dependent on business cases, assessments of value for money/impact of spending and deliverability.

ATIF- Tier 1 - 2025-26

In 2024-25, we introduced Tier 1 as a replacement for the Cycling, Walking, and Safer Routes (CWSR) Fund. Adhering to the principles of the Verity House Agreement, Tier 1 is provided direct to each local authority in Scotland through their General Capital Grant.

Following completion of the mid-year process, we are pleased to say Local Authorities have moved with ease from the more burdensome requirements of CWSR to Tier 1 and have pro-actively engaged with us to ensure they understand the fund objectives. We are grateful to all 32 local authorities for their time and effort in 2024-25, and for meeting with us to discuss their progress.

Similar to 2024-25, it is intended that Tier 1 funding in 2025-26 includes £23.9 million from the Local Government Settlement (labelled as Cycling, Walking, Safer Routes) and will be topped up by an additional amount from the Active and Sustainable travel budget.

While this allocation is subject to both Parliamentary approval and agreement with CoSLA, it is intended that Tier 1 will be distributed in the same way as in 2025-26.

ATIF – Tier 2 - 2025-26

As outlined in previous bulletins, this year we awarded £10 million of active travel construction funding through ATIF with the majority of the remaining infrastructure funding allocated to Places for Everyone.

From 2025-26, Transport Scotland will provide funding for both design/pre-construction (RIBA Stages 0-4) and construction (RIBA Stages 5-6) of Active Travel projects directly to Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities. Any other groups seeking funding for projects will need to work with one or more of the above bodies to make an application to ATIF. 

With Sustrans winding down the Places for Everyone programme by December 2025, this represents a key milestone in how the majority of our active travel infrastructure funding will be managed. We anticipate opening the fund for applications during the week beginning 13 January and closing on Friday 14 February.

We are finalising the Application Guidance for design/pre-construction (RIBA Stages 0-4). This will be based on the Places for Everyone Guidance, including its assessment criteria, as it had evolved to align with our Active Travel Framework. While there will be some minor amendments and additions to the application, during the first year of the transition we aim to avoid placing significant additional burdens on applicants who are already familiar with the PfE process.

For construction (RIBA Stages 5-6), the guidance will largely follow our previous ATIF guidance, with some minor amendments to the application process based on the lessons learned from this year’s round of funding.

Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities will be invited to complete their application on the Citizen Space portal for both design/pre-construction and eligible ‘construction-ready’ Active Travel infrastructure projects for delivery in 2025-26.

Guidance and information on how to complete both ‘design/pre-construction’ and ‘construction-ready’ application will be provided, along with timescales regarding the assessment of applications and awarding of funding. Please note that the funding of these applications is subject to the Scottish Government Budget for 2025-26 passing through Parliament and the Scottish Government’s financial governance and controls process. Further information will be made available through in a subsequent bulletin early next year.

Due to financial pressures across the Scottish Government, we were not able to award pre-construction funding for this year (2024-25) through Places for Everyone. For those who applied, you will hear from Sustrans shortly if you have not already.

Behaviour Change

National Bikeability Training and Active Travel Monitoring

We are making plans for the continuation of the Bikeability Scotland national cycle training programme and the national programme of cycling and walking traffic monitoring (Cycling open Data Portal).

Regional People and Place RTP Programme

Similarly, we are taking forward the continuation of the sustainable and active travel behaviour change ‘People and Place’ programme, having now received first draft proposals from each of the seven RTPs. As we move from this initial transitional year of the programme into year two, notable developments include: Broadening the programme remit to include the promotion of ‘sustainable travel’, the incorporation of support for community projects, and drawing closer links with Local Authority work across both behaviour change and infrastructure. RTPs can be contacted for more information:

• Hitrans – People and Place
• Nestrans – People and Place
• SEStran – People and Place
• SPT – People and Place
• Swestrans – People and Place
• Tactran – People and Place
• ZetTrans – Shetland's Transport Partnership

People and Place Local Authority Direct Award

It is also intended (subject to the budgetary approval process) to continue with the Local Authority Direct Award. We will be getting in touch with LA lead contacts shortly to outline the process for 2025/26. As suggested above, however, we want to continue encourage LAs and their RTPs to develop plans together, and would suggest that where necessary, the People and Place (P&P) LADA funding is used at minimum to secure the core staffing capacity to interface with RTPs and TS on sustainable and active travel. Going forward we will be considering P&P funding across both RTPs and LAs as a single programme, to help reduce uncertainty and duplication in planning.

Active Travel News

We have been encouraged to see recent evidence from the Climate Emergency Response Group (CERG), Living Steets and Cycling Scotland that aligns with our long-standing policy position that high quality networks of segregated infrastructure and enabling people to use them are the key elements needed to enable more people to safely walk, wheel and cycle.

Cycling Scotland statistical update published 11 November proves that there is a strong trend of user growth in areas where high quality segregated infrastructure is in place. This update contains an analysis of 14 locations across Scotland which have shown over 30% increases in the number of cycle journeys in summer 2024 compared with the previous year. These urban and rural locations include Aberdeenshire, Angus, Clackmannanshire, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Glasgow, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, and West Dunbartonshire, with a number of count sites having seen significant investment in safer cycling infrastructure in recent years.

A similar message was also put forward by CERG, who published a report on 30 October on the Scottish Government policy response to the climate emergency. The same theme reflected – that there is a strong trend of user growth in areas where high quality segregated infrastructure is in place.

The Pedestrian Pound (v3) by Living Streets published on 14 November cites the example of Clackmannanshire Council breathing new life into Alloa’s declining town centre through innovative improvements, prioritising accessibility for older residents and pedestrians using accessibility improvements like dropped kerbs and improved crossing points. This included transforming a former department store to residential use and refurbished a recently closed public toilet next to the bus station. Several nearby vacant commercial premises have since been filled. The report also estimates that in Scotland, the health benefits arising from people walking to work lead to a reduction in deaths worth over £600 million a year.

Evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study on the health benefits of pedestrian and cyclist commuting has also been published recently, showing direct evidence of a range of significantly improved health outcomes for both physical and mental health, and reinforcing the need for safer cycling infrastructure to help realise these benefits. In particular, it found that commuting by bike reduces the risk of early death, cardiovascular disease, cancer mortality and treatment for mental health problems.

Active Travel Engagement

On a different note, several Ministerial engagements have been hosted by partners over the autumn, and we are grateful to all involved:

Tactran Visit (Dundee and Angus, December)

• The Cabinet Secretary visited Tayside on 4 December. Engagements included the active travel public transport integration at Dundee Railway Station and Eastern Primary School, one of the leading examples of active travel in the region. The school has a dedicated Active Travel Group and is engaged across the full range of active travel initiatives support via the People & Place programme, as well as projects supported directly by the city. The Cabinet Secretary also visited active travel signals at Carnoustie which prioritise pedestrian or cycle movements along a newly surfaced stretch of coastal cycle path where it briefly shares space with the main carriageway over a bridge.

Roseburn to Union Canal (Edinburgh, December)

• The Cabinet Secretary visited the opening ceremony of the route on December 9. This project has transformed public spaces along the route creating a green corridor that enhances walking, wheeling and cycling connections while revitalising a previously under used area. It was good to see Father Christmas take time out of his busy schedule to attend as well.

Thank you for all your hard work throughout the year in delivering projects that benefit our communities and help to deliver on our vision for Active Travel. We would like to extend our best wishes for the festive break to all those involved in the delivery of and those who make use of our active travel programmes, and look forward to building on a successful year as we start 2025.