Funding boost for Hampshire transport initiatives
On 5 July 2011, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced that Hampshire County Council had been successful in securing a grant of £4.076m from the DfT’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) for transport schemes which boost economic growth and reduce carbon emissions. The money awarded to the County Council is from the government's Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) where local transport authorities in England (outside London) were invited to apply for funding to support the cost of a range of sustainable travel measures, and will be spent on "green transport" projects within the six sustainable transport towns identified in the bid - Aldershot, Andover, Basingstoke, Farnborough, Fleet and Winchester.
The criteria the County Council met to win the funding focused on five themes:
- support the local economy and improve the vitality of town centres,
- reduce carbon emissions,
- help people consider other ways to travel,
- improve travel information
- provide healthy and sustainable travel to train stations.
and was judged by the Department for Transport to be able to deliver the objectives of creating growth and cutting carbon emissions. The project is scheduled to run for three and a half years from July 2011 to 31 March 2015.
The money awarded will be used to implement schemes such as cycle parking at schools and places of employment, improved cycle links, encouraging sustainable travel by students, bus priority measures, installing electric vehicle charging points and a cycling behavioural change package in partnership with the Cycling Touring Club.
