Local authorities should have done more to encourage residents to continue the cycling and walking habits acquired during the lockdown, the AA has said.

Department for Transport (DfT) statistics reveal that in 2020 the distance cycled on average had increased 62%, with the number of trips up 26%.

However, the DfT’s figures also show that the following year the average distance was up only 2% and the trips 7% lower when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Responding to these figures, the AA said that the Government and councils had ‘wasted an opportunity’ in 2020 to encourage and change travel behaviour and get more people to cycle.

‘The reversal of lockdown trends that saw a surge in active travel in 2020, such as cycling, points to the Government and councils’ failure to seize the opportunity to ingrain and promote more of those changed behaviours into the way the UK travels,’ said the AA’s president Edmund King.

Mr King added that local authorities should be doing more to encourage the use of park and ride.

He said: ‘The AA has pleaded with the Government and councils to expand park and ride and park and cycle facilities on the outskirts of cities and towns, following the huge success of schemes such as in Cambridge. Instead, too many cities have gone for urban access charges that hit lower-income drivers, and in London drove those poorer car-owning residents off the road.

‘Park and Ride influences all drivers not just the ones with older and more polluting vehicles – and it will continue to reduce car trips into busy urban centres long after those older cars have been scrapped.’