£50m cycle project is hit by cutbacks

A scheme that beat the Black Country to £50 million of lottery funding has been hit by council cutbacks around the country, it emerged today.

The Sustrans Connect2 project pipped the Black Country Urban Park bid after winning a 2007 national vote to create 79 interconnected cycle and walking routes across the country.

But councils, who are match-funding the project, are having difficulty meeting their end of the bargain due to cuts.

They could lose up to 25 per cent of their government funding.

Warwickshire County Council is considering pulling out altogether to save £270,000, meaning it loses £300,000 in lottery and Sustrans funding.

The Black Country's plan included a multi-million pound visitor centre at Barr Beacon in Walsall.

It would have seen the Wren's Nest National Reserve improved, the Seven Sisters Mines in Dudley opened up, a green space corridor created from Walsall Arboretum to Dartmouth Park linking Walsall and West Bromwich, the canals and waterways of Wolverhampton improved and a Wildlife Trust Living Landscaping project set up across the Black Country.

Councillor Paddy Bradley, Wolverhampton's regeneration chief, said today she believed the lottery should consider doing something else with the money.

She said: "The trouble with projects of this size is people don't get on and do them and then they collapse.

"If there is a chance of some lottery funding being unused then I think we should go for it, not necessarily to do the same thing that we originally planned but we are still suffering from the credit crunch and it could be put to very good use in the Black Country."

Tim Temple, Connect2 project manager at Sustrans, said: "We know that councils across the UK face tight financial pressures and are awaiting news from the Government's spending review in October.

"Sustrans is maintaining our work with councils to invest in walking and cycling for everyday journeys."