Cycling cash ‘spent on terror safety’ - Campaigners claim funding was diverted to help protect Whitehall from car bomb blasts
Published: 30 April 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM
HUNDREDS of thousands of pounds allocated to improving cycle paths across Westminster has been “wasted” on protecting Whitehall from terrorist attacks, campaigners have claimed.
A Freedom of Information request by the West End Extra found that City Hall spent £400,000 obtained from Transport for London (TfL) in 2007 on a major “streetscape enhancement” project to protect government buildings from car bombs.
The council have insisted the scheme, which widened the road and fixed down dozens of “anti-terrorist bollards”, would improve safety for cyclists on a busy route.
But Colin Wing, who heads up the Westminster branch of the London Cycling Campaign, said the cycling benefits were “incidental” and claimed the funds should have been spent on “cycling-specific schemes” such as building cycle paths and crossings.
He said: “It is a disappointment and has caused eyebrows to raise a lot. This is not the kind of thing we envisaged. The £400,000 was a contribution towards the Whitehall scheme that doubtless cost much more than that. It is reasonable to suppose that the installation of anti-terrorist bollards was the main stimulus.”
Mr Wing said there had been little improvement in cycling conditions on Westminster’s roads since the London Cycling Network Plus funding scheme began three years ago.
City Hall officials could not give a detailed description of what the £30million works in Whitehall – a collaboration between the council and Cabinet Office – involved for “security reasons” but confirmed they included “anti-terrorist bollards”.
A council spokeswoman said: “The £400,000 has gone towards widening more than 1,000m of bus lane along Whitehall from three metres to four metres – specifically designed to make cycling easier. The remaining £29.6m of the project was funded by central government and was designed to both improve security and the streets in the heart of the capital.”
Martin Low, Westminster Council’s transport chief, said: “The entire length of the bus lane in both directions, which is more than 1,000 metres, has been widened by a metre so that cyclists are able to share the lane in comfort and safety, and the funding provided by TfL to implement this represents a small, but important, part of the overall scheme.”