I THINK

we all saw that study the other day – cycling halves your risk of dying of cancer or heart disease.

It’s almost better than giving up smoking in terms of your health.

If that’s the way you build activity into your day, then why not do it as your mode of transport?

Then you’ve got the pollution aspect. Again, that’s made worse by congestion.

There’s also transport poverty – people who can’t afford a car and maybe don’t live on a bus route. Cycling is the only option.

People need to be enabled to cycle. If you give people a dedicated space to cycle on, they will use it.

You can see what’s happening in London with the cycle superhighways – people going through the heart of London with small children. That’s just fantastic. That’s what we want to see.

We’re not going at anything like the rate we need to go. We need a step change in funding.