Portsmouth is above average for cycling and walking to work as lockdown eases

As Boris Johnson announced the first stage of the easing of lockdown and encouraged people who can’t work from home to return to their workplace, he did so with the caveat of where possible avoiding public transport and walking or cycling.

The most recent survey results (2017/18) from the Office for National Statistics shows the city is above the national and regional averages for cycling and walking as a means of daily travel.

The figures show 15.2 per cent of Portsmouth residents use bikes to travel to work at least once a week with 7.4 per cent doing so three times per week. This compares to 6.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent in England and 7 per cent and 3.6 per cent respectively for the South East region.

It’s a similar situation with walking for daily travel where 55.9 per cent of the population said they did so at least once a week and 32.7 per cent three times a week. Nationally and regionally this figure is 47.2 per cent and 42.4 per cent respectively (once a week) and 23.1 per cent and 22.8 per cent (three times/week).

With a Cycling UK poll revealing 6 per cent of adults in the south are cycling ‘much more often’ than before the lockdown there is pressure on councils to improve cycle lane provision.

To help improve the capacity for people to cycle and walk to work, the government has released a £250m Emergency Active Travel Fund to help councils to widen pavements and develop new cycle lanes.

While the city council have announced plans to make some roads in the south of the city more cycle friendly during lockdown and to create a new cycle lane along Eastern Road, they have also warned there is no ‘quick wins’.

Councillor Lynne Stagg said: ‘One of the problems with transport is you have lots of logistics to sort out and health and safety checks, you can't just do things. We do want to do things as quickly as possible. We are working as fast as we possibly can.'

Campaign group, Pompey Street Space, hope that even after lockdown ends there will be a new emphasis on cycling and walking to work. However one potential barrier could be concerns over safety. Recently published figures showed Portsmouth was the 14th highest ranked local authority for cycling incidents.

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