Susan,Richard has linked to the statutory guidance. Here is the letter from the DfT to Councils. I draw your attention in particular to the paragraph outlining the timeline of four weeks to start work following receipt of funds, the clawback clause, references to ETOs and to second funding tranche. In other words if you don't do the work now you won't get any money.Emergency Active Travel Funding Indicative AllocationsDepartment for Transport Great Minster House33 Horseferry Road LondonSW1P 4DRTel: 0300 330 3000Web Site: www.gov.uk/dftOur Ref: Your Ref:28 May 2020On behalf of the Department of Transport, I am pleased to give details of the indicative allocations for the first tranche of the emergency active-travel fund announced on 9 May. This new funding is designed to help you use pop-up and temporary interventions to create an environment that is safe for both walking and cycling in your boroughs. Active travel allows people to get around whilst maintaining social distance and will have an essential role to play in helping us avoid overcrowding on public transport systems as we begin to open up parts of our economy. We have a window of opportunity to act now to embed walking and cycling as part of new long-term commuting habits and reap the associated health, air quality and congestion benefits.Of the total £250 million fund, £225 million will be provided directly to local transport authorities and London boroughs, while £25 million will help support cycle repair schemes.The £225 million allocated to combined and local authorities will be released in two phases. The first tranche of £45 million will be released as soon as possible so that work can begin at pace onLondon’s indicative share of the £225m will be £25 million over the rest of the financial year, with £5 million in the first tranche. This takes into account the fact that TfL has recently had its own separate funding settlement from the Department, £55 million of which is to be spent on active travel measures on both TfL and borough roads. The indicative allocations are in addition to this £55 million and the Department expects that the measures supported by this additional £25 million will be closely coordinated with TfL’s active travel investment programme.For the first tranche of funding, the Department has indicatively allocated a sum of £100,000 to each individual borough and the balance of £1.7m to Transport for London. This is to speed up the process of individual boroughs receiving an appropriate share of the funding, and also recognises the fact that allocating the funding by a formula based on public transport usage by those resident in each borough (as we have done for the rest of the country) would lead to some anomalies in London. It also recognises that TfL has recently had its own separate funding settlement from the Department, part of which is to be spent on active travel measures on both TfL and borough roads.The amounts are only indicative. To receive any money under this or future tranches, boroughs and TfL will need to satisfy the Department that there are swift and closing roads to through traffic, installing segregated cycle lanes and widening pavements.1meaningful plans in place to reallocate road space to cyclists and pedestrians, including on strategic corridors.The quickest and cheapest way of achieving this will normally be point closures. These can be of certain main roads (with exceptions for buses, access and for disabled people, and with other main roads kept free for through motor traffic); or of parallel side streets, if sufficiently direct to provide alternatives to the main road. Point closures can also be used to create low-traffic filtered neighbourhoods.Pop-up segregated cycle lanes will also be funded, but are likely to be more difficult to implement quickly. As the guidance states, they must use full or light segregation. We will also fund the swift implementation, using temporary materials, of existing cycle plans that involve the meaningful reallocation of road space.We expect all these measures to be delivered quickly using temporary materials, such as barriers and planters. Elaborate, costly materials will not be funded at this stage. Anything that does not meaningfully alter the status quo on the road will not be funded.As the guidance makes clear, 20mph zones can form part of a package of measures, but will not be sufficient on their own.If work has not started within four weeks of receiving your allocation under this tranche of funding, or has not been completed within eight weeks of starting, the Department will reserve the right to claw the funding back by adjusting downwards a future grant payment to your authority. This is also likely to have a material impact on your ability to secure any funding in tranche 2.To allow changes to be put in place more quickly, a temporary process for new emergency traffic orders was announced on 23 May halving the time needed for approval.The second tranche of £180m will be released later in the summer to enable authorities to install further, more permanent measures to cement cycling and walking habits.In order to access a share of this funding, we will require the completion of an online proforma to allow us to assess your plans on how the money will be spent. The proforma is intended to be as simple and light-touch as possible and should not be onerous for you to complete. The proforma for tranche one should be completed as soon as possible and no later than Friday 5 June. It can be found online here: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/ActiveTravelFund/. We will write to you again shortly with instructions on how to access the second tranche of funding, together with a new proforma.We will make the payments via a grant under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003 together with a formal grant determination letter as soon as possible after you have submitted the proforma. In the event that any borough does not wish to receive a share of the funding or does not submit proposals which meet the Department’s expectations, we will reserve the right to decrease indicative allocations and reallocate the funding elsewhere. If you have any questions on any aspect of this funding, please email: activetravel.pmo@dft.gov.uk 2Yours faithfully, Rupert FurnessDeputy Director, Active and Accessible Travel
Paul Campbell ● 2337d