With new figures published this week showing that 1.2 million more people enjoyed the opportunity to cycle for leisure and sport between May 2020 and May 2021, here’s our response from British Cycling Policy Manager, Nick Chamberlin.

“In addition to the latest Active Lives data from Sport England, it is great to see data from Transport for London (TfL) highlighting people cycling in London are more diverse than ever. For the first time Londoners from ethnically diverse communities are as likely to have cycled in the last 12 months as white Londoners.

“As we discussed last year when we saw early data indicating a cycling boom, we have witnessed what happens when there is lower traffic on the roads and people feel safer. In London we have also seen the impact of a lot of the ‘emergency active travel’ infrastructure that was put in at pace in the spring and early summer of 2020 to support more cycling and walking journeys.

“These figures once again demonstrate that there is significant latent demand for cycling especially by women and ethnically diverse communities, if only we can provide the safe, pleasant spaces that enable people to make the choice.

“The car led transport recovery from the pandemic has quickly made some of our roads congested and unpleasant again for cycling but we know that the hundreds of thousands of new cycles purchased over the last 18 months will be used if we can develop more safe space for cycling.”

Find out more about the Active Lives Survey here.