Rose statement on ceasing UK bike sales; Lukas Pöstlberger stung in the mouth by a bee, abandons TDF; LTNs compared to Holocaust by disgruntled driver; Jumbo-Visma boss thrown off Tour after mechanical doping check row + more on the live blog

No, you're not missing anything. You sum it up perfectly.

Good, I'm glad I've not missed a really crucial point, and glad that all of the other problems in the UK, rampant inequality, food poverty, environmental collapse have all been sorted so we can now focus on the really key things, like the apparent right to drive anywhere you like.

I live in a road with filtered entry - and no through route. Do you know what happens on sunny evenings like this past week? Children run about, scoot, ride their bikes, mums and dads hang about chatting,  residents walk their dogs or let them meander about, doors are open as residents walk in and out from the street / home. There are no cars - only those belonging to residents or the occasional delivery. Oh, the horror, the horror . . . . . 

I'm currently living through this same nightmare.

That's just the cost to stabilise it to let pedestrians & cyclists use it again, the cost to really fix it is nearly 4 times that much. It's been scandolously left to rot like this purely on the basis of partisan politicking and who ultimately pays for it, the mayor wants the government to foot the bill, the government want the mayor to pay instead and both are playing who will blink first and not let the bridge collapse in the Thames.

I'd be delighted if my central gov tax money went on fixing a smallish bridge in that London, because it'll help my economic well-being as all those of my betters who work in London make the money that keeps northern spongers and wasters like me going.

But don't even think about doing the same in reverse cos we don't deserve it, your worships.

Actually I do hope the bridge is saved as it's a nice piece of Victoriana but FFS we've all been fleeced for your Crossrail and still you ask us to prop you up? Enough!

Back in 2004 the Leeds Supertram scheme was cancelled in an announcement in Parliament and minutes later £340m of funding was announced to support transport improvements to the London Olympic bid so no change to funding priorities after all these years.

I totally agree,that's the frustrating thing the money is already there in London,it gets a ridiculous amount of subsidy compared to other parts of the country for infrastructure projects just like this,it doesnt need national government intervention with it, its just you get the impression the key parties involved
would rather play politics with it,than just roll their sleeves up and get on with it and the casualty may well be we lose a valuable Victorian piece of engineering as a result.

I don't think London gets any subsidy.

It's one of the few areas of the country that doesn't.

This argument irritates me.

Yes, London gets more public spending than other areas,  it also pays far more in tax than it receives in public spending. The difference is staggering. The biggest losers are people in Surrey, Buckinghamshite and Berkshire who pay southern amounts of tax and get northern levels of public expenditure.

London and the South East of England are the only English regions which are net contributors to public spending. East of England is about even, SW, Midlands, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the North East just suck up money from the rest of the country

London gets a lot of spending - a disproportionate amount- but it is far less than it would get if it got to keep all the tax revenues it generates. 

Sorry, what are these "southern amounts of tax" and in which dis-United Kingdom should tax revenue only be spent in the locality in which it is raised? If I earn more than my neighbour and hence pay more tax can I have the road resurfaced just outside my house?

People in the wonderfully mis-spelt Buckinghamshite pay the same vat and income tax rates as the rest of England and Wales. If they are paying more tax it might be on Council Tax (though I think not) or because salaries are quite high compared with the rest of the country.

I would not pretend that there is no deprivation in Buckinghamshite but please visit Morecambe or Dewsbury or Pontypridd or Shettleston rather than Marlow and then tell me it's unfair on the hard pressed in the South East. Perhaps count the people in queues outside the food bank?

I thought the bridge belonged to the two boroughs at the ends of the bridge... so why is the public transport ticket payer is expected to cough up all the costs? Govt should pay and restore TfL grant.

Hammersmith & Fulham council "own" the upkeep of the bridge, TfL "own" the bus services across the bridge, TfL pledged 25million to help with the repairs, but then Covid hit, and their finances dropped through a hole, so TfL as part of negotiations for the next funding covid bail out, have asked that the government give them the cash to meet their repair pledge,plus the cash to provide a temporary replacement bridge. This while TfL are committed to spending 1.2billion on Silvertown tunnel,which noone wants apart from TfL,though they claim if it were cancelled the money couldn't be used elsewhere. If only there were some elected representative in London with some financial oversight and power to tell TfL and the councils to sort themselves out...

51% support and 16% against.  I'd say it was close to dead cert they will remove them in that case...

So Twitter has invoked Godwin's Law and its only 10.30 on the live blog!

One of the problems is the majority of that majority don't vote Tory. More interested in getting back in and pandering to their core voters than actually delivering benefit to the whole community.

It also varies wildly from borough to borough.  Southwark has the lowest car ownership per household of anywhere in the country and the council have generally done a good job of implementation. Lambeth are similar, as are  boroughs like Camden or Islington. They're not all perfect but I would think that the majority of their measures will remain in place, with maybe some tweaking based on the ongoing live consultation. Whereas Wandsworth or Kensington & Chelsea, who didn't even take the funds they were entitled to to implement them, seemingly installed some half-heartedly, setting them up to fail and have begun to reverse their measures as soon as certain lobbies started shouting loudly.  The odd thing is that all boroughs, certainly central ones, have already signed up to implement them by 2025. People voted for their councillors knowing that these were coming.  I wonder if the better implementation in some boroughs was because they already had plans in place to gradually roll out and meet the 2025 target, whereas the others (all tory led) maybe hadn't begun to plan, hoping for a change in direction/Mayor/DfT policy before they had to bother.

An Edirorial in the Southampton Echo suggests similar. We shouldn't be too surprised that Conservatives are being conservative and  just defending the status quo without recognising that change has to be made or actually having any alternative plans. It's only their own governments policy! https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18723783.letter---southampton-tories-em...

Down the road in Bournemouth (Poole, Christchurch) the everyone but the Tories Alliance has lost a confidence vote this week - the whipped-up manic reaction to the handful of traffic measures they put forward probably didn't help them, so they deserve some marks from us for effort and sacrifice. 
 

there was a good article "Council closes off rat-run"  that got dozens of comments, many negative heaping derision on "selfish" residents and - I struggle to believe this is genuine - saying things like "imagine telling a child that playing in the street is a good idea". Well quite. 

markieteeee wrote:

People voted for their councillors knowing that [LTNs] were coming.  

I think you give people too much credit. 

Maybe hahah.  Does this work:  people voted for councillors who were committed to LTNs by 2025.