The Department announced in January a £140 million investment for its cycling delivery body, Cycling England, over the next three years to complement local authority spend. This has a number of programmes including new routes to around 500 schools, building on the successful Links to Schools programme. In addition, £18.4 million of Government funding since 2005 has provided 295 Links to Schools which link over 600 schools and form part of the National Cycle Network (NCN).
£47 million has also been allocated on extending the Cycling Demonstration Towns (CDT) programme to up to 17 towns including a large city. The outcome of the bidding process for new CDTs is due to be announced later this year. Until the new CDTs and six existing ones develop their future programmes, it is not possible to say what the precise funding will be for increasing the cycle network in the CDTs.
Local authorities provide on and off road cycle facilities such as cycle tracks and cycle lanes, using their Local Transport Plan (LTP) Integrated Transport Block grant from the DfT (which covers schemes costing less than £5 million and includes such cycle schemes) plus their own funding, the DfT Integrated Transport Block grant to local authorities is £372 million for 2008-09. The Department has encouraged local authorities to develop a cycling strategy as part of the LTP process from 2006 to 2011. It is for local authorities to determine the development of the local cycle networks as part of that strategy. Sustrans, who have developed the NGN, then work with local authorities to link the local networks to it. The Department is also providing £2.5 billion in 2008-09 to the Mayor of London through a Total Transport grant. The Mayor is responsible for determining how much is spent on cycling and the development of cycle networks in London.
The above covers England only as that is the Department's responsibility. Responsibility for cycling in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a devolved matter for the administrations there.