Council chiefs have defended their active travel measures after auditors found that more than half of local authorities had 'low capability and ambition' to deliver walking and cycling projects.

A new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) says Active Travel England, set up to improve the ways people make journeys, is developing longer-term funding, building greater capability in local authorities to deliver schemes, and making people feel safer while walking, wheeling and cycling.

The watchdog wants active travel to be the 'natural choice' for shorter journeys in England, or part of longer journeys, by 2040.

It acknowledged that the Department for Transport has recently made changes to the way it invests in active travel and noted this should improve the outlook.

However, it accused the Government of failing to meet its objectives to increase rates of 'active travel'.

The NAO also said it does not yet know if the schemes delivered by local authorities so far have been of good enough quality.

It found that 56% of councils have ‘low capability and ambition’ to deliver active travel projects, which has affected the quality of interventions delivered with Government funding to date.

Gareth Davies, the head of NAO, said: 'Active travel schemes have the potential to deliver significant health and environmental benefits.

'However, DfT knows little about what has been achieved through its past spending and is not on track to achieve most of its objectives.

'Establishing Active Travel England is a good step; Active Travel England and DfT must now maintain this early positive momentum, by learning what works and applying it and building partnerships across central and local government.'

Responding to the report, Cllr Linda Taylor, Transport spokesperson for the Local Government Association (LGA), said councils needed 'long term certainty' to deliver active travel projects.

'It is therefore disappointing that councils have seen an unexpected £200m cut to their budgets for these projects and the Government should urgently restore this much needed funding,' she said.

'This will allow councils to plan a pipeline of active travel infrastructure investments, engage more effectively with local communities and invest in necessary skills and capacity for their own staff.'

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