PRESS RELEASE
HM Treasury: 10 by 2020 Stop Killing Cyclists Protest !!
What: Stop Killing Cyclists are staging a protest and Die-In outside HM Treasury on Horseguards Parade, demanding that the Chancellor Philip Hammond increases investment in the UK’s national protected cycling infrastructure and walking to 10% of the transport budget by 2020.
Where: Protesters are meeting outside the National Gallery and marching to HM Treasury,1 Horseguards Parade, London, SW1A 2HQ for rally and Die-In.
When: Assembling at National Gallery from 1pm. Rally and Die-In at HM Treasury at 2pm.
Protest will feature children playing in gas masks in front of Hammond’s Treasury.
This will symbolise the thousands of UK children, whose lungs are being stunted from living on traffic polluted streets or attending polluted schools, as well as our signature Die-Ins representing the tens of thousands of people dying from transport pollution and inactivity diseases due to lack of protected cycle lanes.
Please bring gas or pollution masks.
Stop Killing Cyclists spokesperson Caspar Hughes said:
“Air pollution is poisoning millions of people in the UK, whilst traffic carbon emissions are contributing to the climate emergency. Road danger means most people do not feel safe cycling on UK roads, which means they lack life-saving physical exercise”.
He added: “There is now an urgent health crisis which is costing the NHS billions. It is now crucial that our national cycling infrastructure gets its fair share of national infrastructure investment.” Cycling and walking are crucial to creating a healthy and sustainable UK. Successive governments have lethally underfunded active travel and current spending plans would further reduce the cycling budget to less than £1 per person in England. This compares with the Dutch investment of about £24 per person per year. The government must urgently commit to radically increasing the funding for cycling and walking to 5% of the 2017 transport budget and to 10% by 2020. This funding needs to further increase to 20% of the transport budget - the UN’s recommended minimum for cycling and walking.
The protest welcomes pedestrians, parents, elderly, motorists, taxi/bus drivers, children, asthmatics etc., as pollution and inactivity diseases caused by lack of cycling infrastructure is causing ill-health to all sections of society.
End. Press spokesperson Alex Raha: Mobile 07930-928751
Notes to Editors:
A. Full list of protest demands:
1. Fair funding for cycling: * Invest £15 billion in a National Segregated Cycle Network over the next 5 years. (Dutch £24 per person x 64 million (UK pop) x 2 to start catching up on 40 years of failure to invest).
* Invest 10% of Department for Transport Budget by 2020 in safer cycling/walking infrastructure.
2. Ban all non-zero emission private cars from cities on days where pollution levels are predicted to rise above EU safety levels.
3. Ban all diesel-powered vehicles in city-centres within 5 years.
4. Ban all fossil-fuel powered vehicles within city centres within 10 years.
5. Instigate a programme of regular car-free days in England’s major cities, along the model of Paris.
6. Stop the Killing of children – set up a national multi-billion-pound programme to convert residential communities across Britain into living-street Home Zones with an end to dangerous polluting through-routes.
7. Stop the Killing of pedestrians – establish a national programme to fund pedestrianizing/cyclisation of our city, borough and town centres, including the nation’s high-street – Oxford Street. 8. Allow city councils and TfL to limit the total number of private hire vehicles in their cities and promote the usage of zero emissions pedicabs with legal pedicab stands etc.
B. List of Government Actions worsening the horrific pollution death toll have included:
Increased taxes on cleaner cars
Reduced taxes on more polluting cars
DfT released proposals to close down local street pollution monitoring
UK government lobbied EU to weaken pollution testing standards after VW scandal
Despite taxi numbers in London soaring above 100,000, government refusing to allow TfL to regulate taxi numbers in London.
Osborne slashed the already miniscule funding for cycling investment to a tiny pathetic 6% of what Dutch are spending, whilst allocating billions more to road-building.
Osborne has cut fuel duty at every single budget despite oil prices having fallen by over a third since 2012.
Government banned use of camera vehicles by local councils to enforce parking restrictions.
They refused to reduce speed limits to 60 mph on M1 and M3 help reduce frequency of EU pollution levels being breached.
They have proposed raising speed limit on motorways to 80 mph
UK government has been breaking EU road pollution law safety limits since 2010
Government found guilty of breaking EU pollution directive by UK Supreme Court in 2015
Government plans for London to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2025
Government plans for other major UK cities to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2030 e.g. Birmingham & Leeds
Government lobbied EU to dilute road pollution laws that it is breaking
Chancellor extended first MOT requirement from 3 to 4 years., thus enabling faulty polluting vehicles to be undetected on the roads for yet another year.
C. Full 2016 Royal College of Physicians report on transport pollution death statistics and £20 billion cost to NHS (16% of total cost!) is here: