Written question asked by Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat) on Thursday, 8 November 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 12 November 2007. It was answered by Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Labour) on Thursday, 15 November 2007 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Walking and Cycling

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff are employed by her Department to work on policies to encourage more (a) walking and (b) cycling.

Answer: Walking and cycling policies do not fall into neat boxes which enable us to identify exactly how many people deal with each area. The Department's walking and cycling team currently consists of six people. Another team, the sustainable travel team, promotes all forms of sustainable travel which clearly has a strong emphasis on walking and cycling. This includes the Department for Transport (DFT) half of the DFT/Department for Children, Schools and Families School Travel Project: 14,000 schools have school travel plans and for ““Walking to school”” grants in which 3,200 primary schools are receiving grants for increasing walking through walking buses and other walking initiatives. In addition, colleagues in other teams including traffic management, road safety and communications for example also work on policies to encourage and promote walking and cycling. We also created an independent body, Cycling England, in 2005 which has a budget of £10 million per annum to promote cycling.

Secondary information