The new organisation will be responsible for driving up the standards of cycling and walking infrastructure and managing the national active travel budget, awarding funding for projects that meet the new national standards set out in 2020.

ATE will also begin to inspect, and publish reports on, highway authorities for their performance on active travel, and identify particularly dangerous failings in their highways for cyclists and pedestrians.  

It will help local authorities to train staff in spreading good practice in design, implementation and public engagement. It will also be a statutory consultee on major planning applications to ensure that the largest new developments properly cater for pedestrians and cyclists.

The government also announced £5.5m of new funding for local authorities, train operators and businesses to encourage various active travel schemes, including a £300,000 top-up to e-cargo bike schemes, £3m to improve cycling infrastructure around train stations and £2.2m to explore active travel on prescription schemes.

Boardman is the country’s leading figurehead for active travel and delivered the first phase of Manchester’s public transport system known as the Bee Network.

He will be closely involved in the full stand-up of ATE, including the recruitment of the chief executive and management team. He has been appointed on an interim basis, while the Department for Transport conducts a full and open competition for the permanent commissioner role.   

“The positive effects of high levels of cycling and walking are clearly visible in pockets around the country where people have been given easy and safe alternatives to driving. Perhaps most important of all, though, it makes for better places to live while helping both the NHS and our mission to decarbonise,” said Boardman.

“The time has come to build on those pockets of best practice and enable the whole nation to travel easily and safely around their neighbourhoods without feeling compelled to rely on cars. I’m honoured to be asked to lead on this and help deliver the ambitious vision laid out in the government’s Gear Change strategy and other local transport policies.”