Hope for better bike infrastructure as Active Travel England to be consulted on new housing estates

Organisation will help deliver cycling infrastructure on all future large planning applications

Cyclist riding in London
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Active Travel England (ATE) will advise on and help deliver cycling infrastructure on all future large developments, it was announced on Thursday. This will hopefully improve "public health, reducing emissions and tackling the cost of living crisis", according to Chris Boardman, although ATE does not have the power to enforce its planning recommendations.

The quango is the government body responsible for making walking, wheeling and cycling the preferred choice. It has officially become a statutory consultee on all planning applications for developments equal to or exceeding 150 housing units, 7,500 metres squared of floorspace or area of five hectares.

This will see ATE reviewing approximately 3,100 applications a year, equating to 60% of new homes.

“Active travel is essential to improving public health, reducing emissions and tackling the cost of living crisis," Boardman, ATE's commissioner, said in a press release. "That’s why we’re working to ensure millions more people have the opportunity to walk, wheel or cycle from their doorstep to where they need to be.

“Designing activity back into our neighbourhoods and creating places where children have transport independence is achievable – it just needs smart planning.

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Tom Thewlis
News and Features Writer

After previously working in higher education, Tom joined Cycling Weekly in 2022 and hasn't looked back. He's been covering professional cycling ever since; reporting on the ground from some of the sport's biggest races and events, including the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and the World Championships. His earliest memory of a bike race is watching the Tour on holiday in the early 2000's in the south of France - he even made it on to the podium in Pau afterwards. His favourite place that cycling has taken him is Montréal in Canada.