Bath MP Accuses WECA Mayor of Dither and Delay

4 June 2020

Bath MP Wera Hobhouse has written to the WECA Mayor Tim Bowles, urging him to release the £80 million he received two years ago as part of the Transforming Cities Fund.

Wera Hobhouse said:

“Delay is as bad as denial when it comes to the Climate Emergency.

Tory Tim Bowles received some £80m as part of the Transforming Cities Fund two years ago. This money is to improve the region’s sustainable transport. So far he has spent absolutely nothing on walking and cycling infrastructure.

“The local Council has projects ready to go, and now has encouragement from Transport Minister Grant Shapps. All we get from Tim Bowles is dither and delay. No vision, just the offer that he will chair another meeting in the latter half of June. He is letting the whole region down.”

On 9th May Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, said that the Government expects local authorities to make significant changes to their road layouts to give more space to cyclists and pedestrians.

Wera Hobhouse added:

“Considering that the Government is also urging people to avoid public transport for some considerable time, a message that Tim Bowles himself passed on to the region’s businesses, it is bizarre in the extreme that he continues to hoard the money that the Government has already given us.

“We have a unique opportunity to actually transform the region’s cities, whilst road space is relatively quiet. I am calling on him to release £5m to each authority within WECA to get their projects underway now, and not dither and delay any longer.”