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Marble Arch cycle lane (inset: Nigel Farage) (credit: Simon MacMichael/Gage Skidmore via CC BY-SA 2.0)Nigel Farage lashes out at “cycle lanes that no one uses”, accusing councils facing bankruptcy of wasting “tens of millions” on cycling infrastructure
Nigel Farage has criticised local councils “on the verge of bankruptcy” for wasting “tens of millions” of pounds on “cycle lanes that no one uses”, ahead of the May 2025 local elections.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, the Leader of Reform UK said local authorities were prioritising projects such as bike lanes and climate departments over essential services, accusing them of mismanaging public funds.
“You look at where they spend the money — tens of millions being spent on cycle lanes that no one uses, huge departments of people dealing with climate change, but all people really want are proper, well-run local services,” he said.
The Clacton MP made the comments as part of his wider critique of local government ahead of the upcoming elections, where Reform UK is standing candidates across England in mayoral contests as well as contesting for seats in several councils, a recent Guardian report also indicating that over 60 of its candidates are Tory defectors.
> Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party to target pro-cycling councils in next year’s local elections
He claimed that most councils were “on the verge of bankruptcy,” and accused senior staff of awarding themselves “ever-increasing sums of money” while basic services such as road maintenance and adult social care were under strain.
“It’s local government they’re voting for. Of course, it’s very important for our roads, dealing with potholes, adult social care, children with educational needs problems… So these elections do really matter,” he said.
Reform UK has seen a boost in national polling in recent months, and Farage said the party’s focus now was turning those figures into tangible results.
“Our poll ratings are roughly double what they were at the general election last year,” he said. “If we do that [win seats], then people will say, ‘You know what? The rise of Reform is real. They are now a major party, and they are now the major challenger to the Labour government.’”
Farage’s criticism of cycle lanes is not new. In 2020, he pledged to stand against what he described as “pro-cycling” local councils in the following year’s local elections.
At the time, Farage’s then-policy adviser Ben Habib singled out the then-Conservative-led Wandsworth Council as “anti-motorist” for introducing temporary active travel measures during the Covid-19 pandemic. The party claimed such schemes were contributing to increased congestion and harming local businesses.
> Brexit Party hopeful candidate begs Nigel Farage for penny-farthing spokesman job
While Reform ultimately fielded very few candidates in the 2021 elections, the strategy signalled the start of an ongoing campaign against what it portrays as “anti-car” policies being pursued by councils across the country.
In a series of newspaper columns in 2020, Farage had also described the temporary cycle lanes and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) as “madness,” accusing the government of “virtue signalling” and claiming that the infrastructure lay unused while contributing to traffic congestion and pollution.
“The volume of cyclists using many of the new cycle lanes is … so low that they cannot be justified,” he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph at the time. “In far too many cases, all the lanes and road closures have succeeded in doing is causing traffic jams.”
He vowed: “My new party will stand candidates against any and every local councillor who backs these new cycle lanes and road closures.”
> Nigel Farage forges new career as anti-cycling bingo caller
That campaign came amid a wider politicisation of active travel infrastructure, with then-Conservative mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey also pledging to suspend LTNs in London if elected, and accusing then-Mayor Sadiq Khan of mismanaging Transport for London’s finances.
Farage had also penned an article for the Mail in 2020, essentially broadcasting his rage towards cyclists and cycling infrastructure, making use of pretty much every tired, old and incorrect cliché — also known as the anti-cycling bingo — such as cyclists not paying road tax and ignoring traffic rules, cycle lanes killing businesses and depriving hard-working motorists of their means of transport, and even heralding the “war on motorists” being waged by the “cycle lobby”.
In 2021, the former leader of the UK Independence Party once again complained about cycle lanes, taking to Twitter to share a video of an ambulance stuck in a gridlock next to a bike lane in London, writing: “This is totally insane. These cycle lanes are a joke.”
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after completing his masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Cymru, and also likes to write about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
Latest Comments
- David9694 14 min 37 sec ago
Jeremy Clarkson to serve 'brains' at Cotswolds pub...
- dubwise 1 hour 58 min ago
Chapeau to PFP for a great victory....
- mdavidford 2 hours 13 min ago
... and then conspired to present it in such a way that you can't really see it.
- No Reply 11 hours 31 min ago
Nothing new. Cyclists are public enemy number 1. I was minding my own business yesterday on a very narrow single track lane with passing places. As...
- IanGlasgow 14 hours 1 min ago
Indicators for bikes are still with us. The best/least bad I've tried are:...
- IanGlasgow 14 hours 6 min ago
Indicators for bikes are still with us. The best/least bad I've tried are:...
- redhanded 18 hours 29 min ago
I had 2 bikes stolen from bike shed outside my flat in London last year. They ended up for sale in Russia. A cycling club I'm a member of tweeted...
- Deac 19 hours 30 min ago
I tried the footrest on the way home, it's a great idea, you can keep on the saddle making it easier to get away from the traffic lights, and being...
- ktache 22 hours 24 min ago
Not that they would be as technical, or maybe quite as grippy, but does the skate industry provide any solutions?
- Rendel Harris 23 hours 6 min ago
Sorry to be a killjoy but it doesn't amuse me at all, I hope the idiot gets caught and punished. Putting yourself on the same road as pros...
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65 comments
Well if you ever get the chance and you feel yourself flagging give me a shout, happy to put in a shift.
Join the queue.
I'm picturing something like this in my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cift6TUOu-8
... says the man (Monbiot) who himself shuts out progressive voices...
In what way does he do that?
I am sure you won't mind providing information to support your comment.
Thanks.
https://populationmatters.org/news/2020/08/its-time-to-end-harmful-popul...
How is Robin Maynard's voice shut out ?
That article is not evidence of Mombiot shutting someone out. Try again.
Crazy that people think the BBC is unbiased when it crowned UKIP a major party and Greens a minor party, despite the fact that Greens were the ones who actually had a member of parliament..
Entertainment no? People might vote Green but few are talking about their soundbites down the pub.
Everyone knows Farage - in part because for him it *is* about him. Although you could argue it's circular!
And stuff like "kick 'em out / rip it up" always seems to get more attention.
Some people *always* want to hear "you've been hard done by, and I will fix that"; the market for "we'll have to change / tighten our belts" is limited.
No. A publicly funded body abusing its power and artificially shaping UK politics.
So, is Farage trying to distract people from the various members of Reform UK that he's fallen out with? To be fair, I think he's right to fall out with them as they're generally racist/bigoted and Farage is trying position Reform as not just another BNP. However, Reform does seem to attract the racists.
He was right to fall out with them; but equally they were right to fall out with him.
Hmm... why would he attract the racists, one wonders...?
The explanation they give is it's just they've been so keen to get people in they've not had the time / resources to do some elementary check-ups. Of course, that's also a choice...
(Possibly less room for them on the fringes of the Conservatives / Labour after the islamophobia / antisemitism investigations?)
The problem is not that he's attracting the racists. The problem is that he's attracting the ones who talk about it in public.
Nothing to do with the £2.3M+ received from oil and gas interests.
Nothing new from the party which is a firm believer in winding down the "war on the motorist" and stuff like green levies / ULEZ etc. Commonsense, innit?
It's social care for adults and children that is bankrupting councils, not cycle lanes.
Reminds one of Alexei Sayle's gag about "Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton"
Of course, many councils have a tangled web of problems. Not a few caused by continued efforts to balance books - and some perhaps due to prior national political steering (e.g. cuts to funding but encouragement of councils setting up their own businesses e.g. Nottingham to name but one). Although some of these affairs look like something more shady, per reporting in e.g. Private Eye.
I guess Nige never had the pleasure of trying our cycling 'infrastructure'. There's a cycle route along the A21, where it bypasses Farnborough, where he grew up. I tried it 40 years ago. It was appalling then. It's appalling now.
By strange coincidence, Nige was appalling back then, and is dangerously appalling now.
This smacks of "£350m/week on the NHS" from Brexit.
Then again maybe I'm wrong and the only thing standing between councils going bankrupt and our services being well run and excellent is those pesky cycle lanes.
Well the councils wouldn't be on the brink of bankruptcy if they they had some access to that £350m/week.
We should then have solvent councils and cycling infrastructure...
If this MP were better acquainted with his constituency than he is with the US President's colon he may have some insight as to the needs of the Nation. I suppose him describing Reform as "MY new party" tells you all you need to know about this petty narcissist.
Does the President's colon describe some kind of linguistic abuse, like the grocer's apostrophe?
You shall have a extra like for that, chapeau!
Its more like the Oxford Commer which was a cross between a saloon car and a van and is thought to be the origin of the SUV
My friend's dad had an old Commer campervan outside his house. It had come to a full stop.
True story.
If you listen carefully that commer can still be heard in Oxford, Woodstock, and a few other nearby places. My Grammar used to have one.
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