(South Scotland)
(Lab): I welcome the doubling of the budget and
highlight to the cabinet secretary that I visited the south city
way CLPLUS—community links plus—project, which was supported on a
cross-party basis. Its accessibility and visibility are
inspiring. Can the cabinet
secretary tell us more about how it will be ensured that
marginalised communities have affordable options in such travel
opportunities?
The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and
Connectivity (Michael Matheson): raises an important issue.
I have on a number of occasions made the point that in promoting
and encouraging active travel, we must reach out to
hard-to-get-at communities, and to individuals who might not
initially think that they will take up an active travel option.
In recent discussions, I challenged
the stakeholders who are responsible for taking forward the
promotion of active travel to demonstrate in greater detail how
they are reaching out to our more deprived communities and
ensuring that they are supported to consider active travel
options. We are, for example, looking at how we can build the
provisions that are necessary to support active travel into the
infrastructure of social housing provision. That could include
cycle and walking routes, work with housing associations, the
creation of e-bike hubs and provision of electric vehicles through a car-club
model. Those could be delivered through social housing. I have
challenged stakeholders to develop all those in a more detailed
way.
