Running Time: 5:32
Cycling instructors stage a protest cycle-ride from Trafalgar Square to City Hall to highlight tumbling pay and conditions – as well as a sudden 50% Transport for London cut to school cycling training provision for the school year ahead.
Funding cuts have resulted in sudden pay cuts for cycling instructors who have already faced a 12-year pay freeze, and thousands of school children unable to access cycling instruction – and this from a government who promised cycling instruction for every person who needed it last year as part of the ‘Gear Change’ plan for increasing active travel.
Pollution is a major problem in London, where every area in the city breaches WHO air pollution recommendations. Air pollution contributed to the deaths of more than 4,000 Londoners in 2019, and severely affects the health of children whose schools and homes are often on busy roads.
So on the day that the COP26 climate talks starts, maybe it might not be a bad idea for the government who’s hosting it to announce that they’re dropping those funding cuts and actually increase the funding to pay cycling instructors properly and increase theiir numbers?
Meanwhile, Transport for London are insisting on continuing with the Silvertown tunnel project in London, a massive four lane highway under the Thames, specifically for HGV vehicles, right next to two schools, making London’s air pollution problem even worse. The eye-watering £2.2 billion the tunnel is costing could easily resolve this dispute, as well as funding other projects that will actually lower carbon emissions, not raise them.
