Transport Minister Challenged! End of the £140m road for Cycling England…?

I got excited news from a prolific writer about train and bicycle stuff this morning. It came from Christian Wolmar right, who is self-styled as ‘Britain’s leading transport commentator’. We’ve met on various occasions and although I haven’t always agreed with him, I’ve often found his passionately expressed views interesting – and that he is generally quite an an affable chap.

But now he has written an “angry” open letter to Norman Baker, Lib Dem MP left, who is our new Transport Minister responsible for Regional and Local Transport…

It turns out that dear old Wolmar has got his knickers well twisted by rumours that a £140m fund to run a body he is director of, at a cost to the taxpayer that began at £5m and increased to £60m per year, is about to get the chop. The body concerned is called Cycling England and Wolmar asks Norman some searching questions. These include:

What is Norman Baker for? What is the point of you being in the Department of Transport? Then, with no more beating about the bush, our new minister is asked this.

“Are you a fig-leaf for the most reactionary policies to come out of the Marsham Street since the days of Nicholas Ridley?”

Cripes! I thought. That’s quite a question to ask a guy who, whatever you may think of him, at least had the guts to voice serious concerns over the exceptionally odd death of Dr David Kelly – who may have known far too much for his own good about the weapons of mass destruction that ‘justified’ the Iraq war – but weren’t actually there. Anyway, Wolmar also tells Norman that Cycling England is facing the axe “for the crime of being a quango – when it could quite easily not be one”.

In response to all this excitement and rumours of funding cuts, the bicycle industry has quite understandably “raised its voice” in support of Cycling England. But whatever the rights and wrongs of all this may be it is set in a tough situation in Britain where spending cuts amounting to £6.2bn need to be made with £683m to be hacked from the Transport Ministers’ budget.

Now I remember passing the good old cycling proficiency test and would love to see it continue to help youngsters learn how to ride a bicycle safely. But I am left with a number of puzzling questions. First, do we really need to spend £60m of public funds per year to do so? Secondly, is an angry letter from the nations’ ‘leading transport commentator’ likely to encourage a Transport Minister to keep a body like Cycling England safe from the budget slasher’s knife?

To be honest, I have no idea what the answer to the first question is but it does seem odd that the costs of running the quango that runs a proficiency test should grow from £5m to £60m in two or three years.

As to the second question, I will leave you to decide for yourself. But I offer a couple of illustrations to show how wide the gap can be between the opinions of prominent figures who comment about cycling. There can be no doubt that Bojo, London’s larger-than-life Conservative Mayor is a great fan of bicycling. But his fellow Tory peer, Lady Sharples is right at the top of the premier league of Baroness bicycle bashers.

Now, whatever comes of this challenge to save Cycling England and all the worthy work it does, there is one for for sure. There is no need to worry about saving  the future of a government funded body that gets £60m a year to do similar worthy work to promote the training and testing of scooter or motorbike riders. And that’s for the simple reason that such a body is a bit like Blair’s WMD in Iraq, it does not exist.

Nevertheless, concerned as I am about such iniquities, I am not a bicycle basher like the Tory baroness – or in anyway anti-cyclist. Actually, in my humble opinion, cyclists and riders of of motorbikes or scooters have to key things in common. First, we ride single track machines on roads and help cut congestion like no twin tracked vehicles can. And secondly, all single-track machine riders are vulnerable to attack by people in or out of big tin boxes with wheels on – and we deserve as much help and protection as we can get. But going back to dear old Wolmar’s angry letter, I have to say that it never ceases to amaze me how much some fans of cycling will demand – even in times when everyone is facing cuts.

Protesters fightback against Westminster’s attempts to get cash flowing in again from bike parking tax

Westminster’s attempts to keep it’s ‘Stealth Tax’ for scooter  and motorbike riders is being subject to stealthy attacks by a secret army of angered citizens. I am reliably informed that protesters have already been out in force in London to fightback against Westminster’s attempts to get cash flowing in again from their controversial and widely hated bike parking tax scheme. And these latest events are happening only days after go-ahead was given to try and make the ‘trial’ charging scheme permanent. Reports are coming in from Visordown (thanks for latest pic) & the NTBPT campaign group to confirm that within hours of the council sending contractors out to replace defaced signs, the new signs have been rendered useless.

Fresh applications of paint have already been applied to many of the new signs to cover crucial details about the charging scheme and this means that charges or parking tickets can not be legally enforced by Westminster City Council.  As I have said before, I cannot condone acts of protest that can be regarded as vandalism. However, the facts of life in a democracy work like this. When officials with government powers end up disregarding a massive swath of legitimate objections to their plan for a new tax on a specific section of the public – and all legitimate paths for meaningful objection by individual citizens are closed – some individuals will take action that is outside those legitimate channels of communication from which they feel shut out.

In my view this current plan for a new parking tax is exceptionally ill-conceived and regressive, and I have done my best along with many others to explain why this is so to the bods who are responsible for creating the current mess. In essence, the key problem with this stealth tax and cause of so much anger is this. It is targeted at a specific group of citizens who work, live and shop in the central district of London who are all doing their bit to cut congestion problems by making essential journeys by motorbike or scooter. Penalising such a group with a new tax is IMHO, indefensible and mad!

And, the main reason that I can’t see objections to the tax ceasing in the foreseeable future, is that the target group for turning into a new local government revenue stream includes an extraordinary cross section of people. Powered Two Wheeler (PTW) riders range from nurses & other essential low paid workers to hospital consultants and couriers who are ensuring that the pace of business in the capital remains competitive with other world cities. So, the current situation looks like this to me. The income from the ‘trial’ of this parking tax scheme in the heart of the the capital run by Westminster Council has far exceeded any ‘benefits’ that the council originally said would justify new charges and fines to be imposed on riders. Correspondingly the only real reason for Westminster officials to try and keep this charging and fines scheme in place is to extract a bit more cash from a minority group of vulnerable road users aka bikers & scooterists.

Lastly, for now, I think there is one other thing to keep in mind. Although the defacing of signs is the most obviously ‘sensational’ aspect of the latest events that can and I’m sure  will be labeled as vandalism by some who will tut accordingly, other very legitimate lines of protest are now open and are as I understand it ready to be actioned – including formal investigations by the EU Commissioners and the Audit Commission and at least two other legal challenges regarding the legitimacy of tendering processes etc, during the set-up phases for the scheme.

Westminster begins fightback against motorbike parking tax protesters by replacing defaced signs

Last night, Crossroads Rider broke the news that Westminster council will press ahead with trying to make their controversial motorcycle parking tax a permanent feature in the centre of London. But I can now report that the council have begun their fightback against protesters by replacing defaced signs. As you can see from the pictures, a team of contractors has already been dispatched to take down signs that are defaced as this invalidates the council’s rights to enforce their new bike parking charge scheme. The council’s contractor Verrus can only make money for themselves and the council from the new scheme if motorbike and scooter riders pay-by-phone each day to park anywhere on public roads in the City of Westminster. It is said however that revenues dropped significantly  after the council admitted that their parking enforcement contractors are not entitled to issue Penalty Charge Notices PCNs in locations where parts of the scheme’s signs had become illegible.

Now, of course, I cannot and will not condone acts of protest that could be construed as vandalism. But I am not convinced that this latest move by the council will prove to be decisive in drawing this row over new parking fees to a sustainable conclusion.

Rage against speed cameras sparks more outbursts of explosive protest in UK and across Europe

Yesterday I went for a bit of blast on my Rocket lll to clear away a few mental cobwebs in the cold but exquisitely clear crisp air that glittered just above freezing across London. Today the air is just as clear and the sun is shinning through, tempting me to go out on another ride. But, so far, I have resisted that temptation because I really need to get some writing done before various things kick off during next week. However, my plan to work has already taken a tangential direction thanks to news from goldiron, who is a biker blogger in America talking about very different types of blast here in the UK, and in other parts of Europe…

They say that bad news travels fast. And news of every sort sure travels faster and further via the internet than any communications medium in human history – but sometimes it takes a curious route.

As I got to my keyboard & screen this morning to settle down to writing my next column for MSL, my attention was grabbed by news that objections to speed cameras have stepped beyond the realms of peaceful protest during the ‘festive season’.

I am not about to condone this level of extremist behaviour for the simple reason that I prefer living in a society that usually deters individuals from reaching a point where blowing things up just because they don’t like them becomes acceptable. And, as UK news shows, our police are taking this matter very seriously. It is also worth recognising that some individuals in our midst have an extreme dislike of motorbikes or scooters – or indeed anything that goes with help from an internal combustion engine, unless of course it’s a  ‘public transport’ service vehicle – but let’s not go there today.

All I am left feeling from this diversion is this. News keeps coming that shows how extreme the anger can get about the use or abuse of automated systems for enforcing road traffic controls and regulations. And, I guess, what  remains to be seen is whether such extreme actions as blowing up speed cameras (aka safety cameras) is more to do with the desperate lengths some individuals feel driven to go to – or that there are some things that are so bad about the way some ‘enforcement’ powers are deployed, that protests of all sorts will continue until changes for the better are introduced.