FOI BOMBSHELL: Wirral Council Confirms It Has No Idea What It Spends on Cycling
- Rory
- May 2
- 6 min read
This is not strategy. It’s policy malpractice—on two wheels.
In March 2025, I published The Future of Cycling on Wirral, a white paper proposing a smarter, more coherent, and publicly accountable vision for cycle infrastructure in the borough. The paper was the culmination of years of advocacy, direct community feedback, and professional experience working with global transport brands and city planners. It called for:
A connected and inclusive network.
Infrastructure for all types of riders.
Real investment tied to real outcomes.
And—above all—transparency.
So to put Wirral Council’s commitment to the test, we filed a Freedom of Information request. The results were astonishing. Not just because they reveal systemic failures…But because they confirm what we feared all along:
Wirral’s active travel strategy is built on guesswork, not governance.
What I Asked in the FOI
I wasn't asking for secrets. I asked for the basics:
How much has the council allocated to maintain cycling infrastructure each year?
How much was actually spent?
What data is being collected about how often cycle routes are used?
What impact assessments or demand models support the Core Active Travel Network (CATN)?
Here’s the essence of their response:
❌ No separate cycle maintenance budget.
❌ No record of actual spending.
❌ No usable cycle usage data.
❌ No direct evidence—just a link to a generic council webpage.
This isn’t a black hole.
This is a black hole with a sign on it that reads: “We don’t track this.”
The White Paper Was Right
In our white paper, we warned that:
“The current approach to cycling infrastructure in Wirral has led to public discontent and political friction… decisions have been made without true engagement, resulting in opposition rather than support.”
The FOI response confirms it. This council doesn’t just lack strategy—it lacks basic operational competence. It’s spending public money on infrastructure it doesn’t track, can’t cost, and won’t evaluate. That’s not poor leadership. That’s no leadership at all.
The Cost of Not Knowing
If you don’t track what you’re spending…If you don’t know what routes are used…If you don’t test if schemes work…
…then how can you claim to be “building a Core Active Travel Network”?
You’re not building a network. You’re building liability.
And the kicker? When we asked for usage data—basic information that any halfway competent transport authority should have—they replied:
“Wirral Council do not have this data in a format which can be shared at present.”
Translation: either they don’t collect it, or they’ve lost it.
Either way, it’s indefensible.
The Numbers Game They’re Not Playing
The FOI confirms:
No dedicated maintenance budget exists for cycle routes—on or off-road.
Expenditure is hidden in larger budgets for highways or rights of way.
They cannot provide route-level costings.
There is no seasonal or year-over-year usage data.
There are no route-specific impact models available outside of vague strategic documents.
Yet this same council:
Claims cycling is a “key transport priority.”
Is promoting the CATN as the backbone of Wirral’s transport future.
And is applying for government funding using data it cannot demonstrate.
If a business ran like this, it would go bankrupt in a week.
This Is Bigger Than Cycling
This is about how public money is spent.It’s about transparency, trust, and competence. And it’s about whether councillors are willing to admit that, for five years and counting, they’ve been flying blind.
Because this isn’t some hostile outsider throwing rocks. This FOI came from the same people who wrote The Future of Cycling on Wirral. The same people who offered a roadmap for collaboration and progress. The same people who want to make Wirral a model for active travel, not a meme.
Our Demands
We’re not interested in political theatre. We’re interested in outcomes. So here’s what we’re demanding—on behalf of every cyclist, commuter, taxpayer, parent, and resident who’s sick of policy by press release:
Establish a ringfenced, transparent annual cycle infrastructure maintenance budget.
Release all cycle usage data held—including raw counter figures and survey results.
Install permanent cycle counters on all CATN corridors
Commission an independent audit of cycling expenditure 2019–2024.
Suspend rollout of any CATN routes not supported by data and full business case evaluations.
This is public money. This is public space. This is public trust.
And we’re done letting it be wasted.
The Verdict
This isn’t just a council failing to support cycling. This is a council that’s confirmed—in writing—that it doesn’t even know what it’s doing. Read that again. Then ask yourself: If this is how they run active travel… how are they running the rest of the borough?
📄 FOI Reference: 945849
Absolutely. Here's the full forensic WIX-friendly update for your blog—structured around your original FOI questions, backed by precise references, and written with bite. Copy and paste straight into your WIX editor.
UPDATE: We Read All the Council’s Evidence So You Don’t Have To
After Wirral Council responded to our FOI by pointing to their Core Active Travel Network (CATN) documents, we did what they clearly hoped no one would: We read every single one. Here’s what we found—and more damningly, what we didn’t.
❓ FOI Question 1: What is the annual budget for cycle maintenance?
Answer in the documents: None.
There is no dedicated cycling maintenance budget anywhere in the documents. Not in:
The main CATN policy paper
Appendix 2: Technical Report by Mott MacDonald
Appendix 5: Post-Consultation Amendments Table
Quote:
“It should be noted that the CATN is a high level strategy so details of the schemes… are not proposed at this stage.”(Appendix 4 – Officer Responses, p.1)
In other words: “We haven’t costed anything yet.”
No mention of revenue funding, maintenance cycles, asset inspections, or even anticipated costs of wear and tear. The phrase “maintenance” appears only in passing—never with numbers, plans, or policy responsibility.
❓ FOI Question 2: What has actually been spent, year by year, on cycle infrastructure?
Answer in the documents: Nothing useful.
Nowhere in the documents is there a breakdown of historical spend. No totals. No year-on-year analysis. No contractor costings. No financial accountability.
👉 What they do instead:They state that business cases will be required in the future. This phrase appears over 30 times across Appendix 4 alone.
Quote:
“A business case will be required to support the implementation of each route.”(Appendix 4 – Response repeated throughout)“Funding for Active Travel projects cannot be used to fund other services.”(Appendix 4 – General Officer Note, p.1)
They’re admitting they have no cost control—but insisting we shouldn’t worry, because the money’s ringfenced.
❓ FOI Question 3: What usage data exists for cycling on Wirral?
Answer in the documents: None provided.
We asked about automatic counters, surveys, seasonal comparisons, even pedestrian vs cycling data. The documents contain:
No counter data (from Eco Counter, Vivacity, or anyone else)
No surveys of actual route usage
No annual monitoring reports
No traffic or modal shift comparisons
No before/after evaluations of existing schemes (e.g. Fender Lane)
👉 What we do get: Generic references to the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT) and “predicted demand,” with zero output tables or data visualisations.
Quote:
“Trendlines were identified as straight lines (as the crow flies) between the two points…”(Appendix 2 – Mott MacDonald Technical Report, p.6)
This is not planning. This is drawing lines on a map and calling it strategy.
❓ FOI Question 4: What impact assessments or demand models support new CATN routes?
Answer in the documents: Just one: a very high-level scoring framework with no actual results.
Appendix 2 (Technical Report) outlines a multi-factor scoring matrix using things like:
Index of Multiple Deprivation
Population density
Car ownership
But:
No scores per route are shown
No weightings or thresholds explained
No demand forecasts or traffic volumes included
👉 There is also no mention of compliance with LTN 1/20’s Cycling Level of Service (CLoS) assessment, despite the CATN being funded through schemes that require it.
Conclusion: The FOI Link Was a Red Herring
Wirral Council’s claim that “the information can be found at the CATN decision link” is false. We were sent over 400 pages of maps, consultation summaries, and buzzwords—none of which answer the questions. None of which demonstrate that:
Anyone is using the current infrastructure
Any money is being tracked
Any strategic oversight exists
We’ll be filing follow-up FOIs. But make no mistake: This is not poor communication. This is a policy that’s being run without evidence, accountability, or public consent.
📎 Documents reviewed include:
🧨 None of these documents contain maintenance budgets, usage data, historical spend, or full business cases. Stay tuned.
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