asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Answer by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 22 April (WA 277–8), whether cycling on footpaths is on the increase; and what steps they will take to prevent it. [HL3236]

Cycling on the footway (the pavement adjacent to the carriageway) is an offence under Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835, as amended by Section 85(1) of the Local Government Act 1888. The maximum fine is £500 or the police can issue a fixed penalty notice costing £30.

There are no statistics that can verify whether cycling on the pavement is increasing. However the Ministry of Justice collects statistics which show the number of cyclists prosecuted for the offence. Figures from 2002 to 2006 inclusive are provided in the table below.

(1) These data are provided on the principal offence basis.

(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces and courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Source: Court Proceedings Database—Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Ministry of Justice

The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

The table shows a marginal increase in the last years for which figures are available.

In addition the fixed penalty notice (FPN) is used to deal with this offence and in 1999 and 2000 the police issued respectively 665 and 821 FPNs for this offence, the only years for which these statistics were centrally collected.

For comparison cyclists travelled on average 4,000,000,000 kilometres each year between 2002 and 2006.

We will continue to remind cyclists of their responsibilities and the current Highway Code also reminds cyclists of these responsibilities.

There is also no excuse for cyclists who put pedestrians at risk by breaking these and other road traffic laws.

The responsibility for enforcement of course rests with the police. It would be for individual local police forces to decide whether an increase in enforcement resources was necessary to combat a local problem.