Cycling grant is welcome, but who should pay?
So Bristol city government is to be awarded £11•4m as part of a £100m national government scheme aimed at encouraging cycling in Blackpool, Cambridge, Chester, Colchester, Leighton Buzzard, Southend, Shrewsbury, Southport, Stoke, Woking and York.
This is great news – it is small beer in transport infrastructure terms, but it is a beginning. What disturbs me about this news is that it is the national government that is involved.
Cycling is a local form of transport so I would have thought that 
unless cycling causes a problem for the national road network the national government would not stick its nose into other people’s business.
We hear it all the time at the European level with people understandably questioning why the European government is involving itself in matters of a local concern to Britain.
So the city government of Bristol can see the merit in promoting cycling – that’s good. Surely it is rich enough to fund the project itself.
The problem lies in the fact that the city has given up the power to tax its inhabitants as it sees fit. It has also given up the ability to raise capital from the money markets at will.
As a government, if you cannot raise your own taxes your options are limited. One of the main reasons why our country has one of the most sub-standard transport systems in the developed world is because our town, city and county governments do not raise the revenue themselves to spend on infrastructure.
You could say that they are not allowed to. And yes, under our law only the community charge is levied by local government (some would include parking charges in that figure).
In my view it is vital that the monopoly of taxation retained by the national government be removed. This will not happen overnight – more’s the pity.
A first step would be for town, city and county governments to borrow money to pay for their own projects – as they do in most countries in the developed world. The second step would be for them to raise taxes on anything that moved (or stays stationary), it’s up to them.
There would be a need to equalise the revenue and spending between richer and poorer counties but that would be a matter for the county governments themselves – it should no more be a matter for the national government than it is for the European government to insist on transfers of cash from the richer Euro states to the poorer Euro states.
We should not be thanking the national government today but blaming it for its control freakery. Less is more. And the British government does far too much to too little effect.
With my proposal at least we’d get our pot-holes fixed.
Previous article: Radio ETA (Thursday, 19th June, 2008)
Comments
Bristol
Bristol City Council now has absolutely no commitment to sustainable transport - so it's not surprising that they aren't funding this initiative themselves. The new shopping mall being built in Broadmead seems to consist mostly of multi-storey car parks and vast new roads. Huge out-of-town malls provide free parking and Bristol's public transport has always been dismal. It's not surprising that the city is gridlocked most of the time.
Cribbs Causeway
I know they are not strictly in Bristol but Aztec West and Cribbs Causeway are examples of very poor land use planning.
Get your land use wrong and you can be gridlocked for years.
I still think that cities should find the where with all to solve these problems.
Local funding for local transport
Andrew
At one level I agree that local transport should be locally funded. However the difficulty in practice is getting local authorities to spend revenue rather than capital funding on sustainable transport, given the uncertainties of what district auditors will allow local authorities to do with their capital funding allowances, and the Treasury's refusal to recognise that a healthy and sustainable transport policy agenda would involve a lot more revenue spending and a lot less capital. Capital funding pays for building things, whereas revenue pays for public transport subsidies, school and employer travel plans, cycle training, individualised marketing and other awareness and promotional activities. (N.B. revenue funding is also needed to pay for the consultation processes needed to engage the public in these initiatives and the monitoring to assess how well they work).
Many local authority transport planners know that these types of initiatives are far more cost-effective - typically they yield a 10:1 benefit:cost ratio. However they are given capital to spend on transport whereas they have to fight each year with their colleagues in education and social services for revenue. It is hardly surprising that they continue to build things rather than opting for more sensible cost-effective solutions.
Channeling funds through bodies like Cycling England is the Department for Transport's very pragmatic solution to a problem which is not of their own making (I blame the Treasury). If you can think of a better one, do say!
Roger Geffen
Campaigns & Policy Manager
CTC, the national cyclists' organisation
Revenue / Capital
I agree that so many of our problems stem from the imbalance between revenue and capital allocations. As you say - it is the national Treasury interference that causes the problem in the first place. If a city wants to spend on revenue projects - let it. If it wants to raise money on the markets then it can do that. If a city's bonds are good then they'll get a good rating if not they won't (this argument is slightly undermined by the recent atrocious ratings of sub-prime mortgage financial products but heyho – it’s being solved).
Cycle England is a good conduit and would still be useful even if cities governed themselves properly and had their own funds.
We often think of countries like China as highly centralized but the greater part of their taxation is raised locally and passed up to the national government not the other way around – downward - as we do here.
It used to be the same here – the cities offered the monarch revenue as the cities saw fit. Each city sent two representatives to ensure the money was spent well. Admittedly this was a few centuries ago but as an idea it is worth considering.
Local taxation for cycle networks and other infrastructure
I've just read your fascinating blog entry about the new cycle schemes in Bristol and elsewhere. (Such a pity my own city of Newcastle isn't included, as I'm a confirmed cyclist!)
Two points. First, dear friend, the Community Charge you mentioned was abolished years ago - this was the 'poll tax' that finally rid us of Mrs. Thatcher. Second, it has long been Liberal Democrat policy to scrap the Council Tax which replaced the poll tax and which, like the rates before it, is based on the size of one's house, and replace it by a local income tax based on ability to pay. So I'm very glad to see you advocating local taxation: it has all kinds of advantages such as the ones you mention, but above all it is a fair tax!
Sarah Richards
Oops
Thank you for pointing that out - I still think of it as the rates!! What madness was the poll tax. I wonder how many city governments would have introduced that.
I will not get into party politics but my point was that whichever party ran the national government local government should collect their own taxes in the way they think fit. If the great city of Newcastle decided on a local income tax that would be fine. Blackpool could have a hotel bed tax. Each could use any combination of taxes they like. There would be a proviso that such taxation should be clear to outsiders - we would not want the financial entrapment of “foreigners”.
Taxation could even become a fun discussion across the land – for example “we in Sheffield think our taxation system far better than that of Manchester because …”.
Cycling Grants
I agree with most of Andrew Davis' blog piece about national v local taxation - the national government should not be meddling in such local matters as cycling and local government should have far more autonomy to raise tax to spend on local matters...but would they spend it on cycling and road maintenance? Your throw-away remark at the end highlights the appalling state of most of the UK's roads, but it is not just pot holes that need fixing, they need complete resurfacing to a high standard otherwise more pot-holes will soon appear. The poor state of the roads in Britain now is a significant deterrent to cycling in my view, not to mention a national disgrace. Instead of calling for lower fuel taxes the motoring lobby should be calling for our road surfaces to be improved, which needs funding through taxation. The problem is local Councils don't see any of this tax.
Will local government spend their taxes on cycling
You are correct, some cities might improve the road surface - I find dodging bad road surfaces whilst cycling a significant hazard - but others might have other priorities. Our task, as I see it, along with other like minded people, is to persuade them of our case. The backlog must be repaired and then a planned maintenance programme put in place to ensure this costly degradation of our infrastructure never happens again. I believe that intercity rivalry will ensure that cities would be proud of the quality of their public spaces. With independent taxation they would have the means to be excellent if they wished. Begging funds from Westminster is not a respectful enterprise – I believe it demeans our culture.