Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I welcome Colin Hutchinson, Peter McParland and Sharan Dustagheer, who are all from DFI and will give us some evidence this morning.

I ask for Committee agreement that the session be recorded by Hansard.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I invite the departmental officials to make an opening statement of up to 10 minutes when they get settled. You probably thought that you would be in about 45 minutes ago. Please get settled, and we will hear your opening statement.

Colin, we are in your hands.

Mr Colin Hutchinson (Department for Infrastructure): Thank you, Chair and members, for the opportunity to give you an update on the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report.

We very much welcome the publication of the report, and, since September 2023, our team has worked closely with the Northern Ireland Audit Office in its work on active travel. We have accepted all the recommendations, and we formally notified NIAO of that in November 2025. We also shared our detailed response with the Committee last month to inform today's discussion.

The report rightly highlights the transformative impact of the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, which introduced the statutory requirement that at least 10% of the transport budget be spent on active travel. As a Department, we have taken significant steps, which are recognised by the NIAO, to strengthen delivery in that area.

The last couple of times that we were before the Committee giving updates, I highlighted the importance of ramping up and enabling activities to ensure that we have the proper foundation in place to allow us to deliver a sustainable and high-quality active travel programme at pace. Those include restructuring; improving resourcing; making changes to how we procure through supply chains; developing the active travel delivery plan, which we will talk about in the next session, including a full update of our design guidance; and additional technical support from the active travel support office. I am pleased to say that all of that work is pretty much complete.

It would be useful for the Committee to get an update on the various strands of active travel work. I have split it into four strands: behavioural change; the Belfast cycle network; delivery throughout the rest of the Province in the other divisions; and greenways. Those are all supported by the active travel support office and the governance framework.

The first and most important one is behavioural change. We want to focus on getting people to change their habits and do more walking, wheeling and cycling. That starts with primary-school children, and we have good programmes in place for that. Around 4,000 pupils received cycling proficiency training last year. Twenty new schools joined the practical child pedestrian safety training programme, up from the previous figure of 14. In 2025, 60 new schools participated in the Active School Travel programme, which is delivered by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, formerly Sustrans. That is co-sponsored by DFI and the Public Health Agency (PHA), and very recently the contract was extended to August 2027. Encouragingly, surveys carried out as part of the programme tell us that the percentage of pupils travelling actively to school has increased from 35% to 45%, with car and taxi use falling from 58% to 49%.

We have made a lot of progress on the Belfast cycle network over the last couple of years. Work on Stranmillis embankment was completed last summer. Schemes that are currently on the ground include Lagmore Avenue, the west Belfast greenway phase 1 and Island Street. A number of schemes are moving closely to the traffic regulation order (TRO) stage — Montgomery Road, Sydenham greenway phase 1, Durham Street and College Square North — and a further eight schemes are advancing through the design process.

Outside Belfast, the delivery teams in the other divisions also continue to increase their capacity to deliver. Notable recent achievements include the opening of the Moylinn pedestrian and cycle bridge along with significant upgrades to the connecting Black Paths in Craigavon. The Ballykelly to Greysteel active travel scheme is due to be completed and opened in the next couple of weeks.

In the past year, we have made significant positive progress on greenways through delivery on the ground and strengthening long-term partnerships with councils and cross-border bodies. The Carlingford lough greenway, which is an 11·4-kilometre route, opened in September 2025, and the Bangor to Newtownards greenway, which is a 5·4-kilometre route, is very near completion. We are also supporting councils in taking forward new schemes, some of which are very ambitious, including those between Portrush and the Giant's Causeway; Comber and Newtownards; and Sligo and Enniskillen. We also have grant funding rounds. In the most recent one, in September 2025, we issued offers totalling £1 million to three councils to support seven approved projects. In the previous year, we had grant funding of £1·9 million across seven active travel schemes. The most visible progress was probably the addition of e-bikes to the Belfast Bikes.

We had talked about the importance of having an active travel support office. That is something that we have copied from our colleagues in the South. Their support office has been key to the successful delivery of their projects. It is basically a small team of full-time external consultants who assist our teams across the board to help them to deliver at pace. They have provided significant additional capacity, enabling faster scheme assessment and improved technical assurance. Ninety-seven routes have been appraised, with around 20 schemes ready for design to commence across the active travel delivery plan and Belfast cycle network areas. By combining that external expertise with internal talent, we have significantly increased delivery capacity, and we are now well positioned to deliver at pace.

I will provide a quick summary of the overall recent investment to date. Between the introduction of the Act and the end of 2024-25 — the last financial year — around £150 million has been spent overall on active travel. Of that, £27 million of the capital investment was on new active travel infrastructure, which is approximately 37 kilometres of additional active travel infrastructure to the network. In 2025-26 — this financial year — we are delivering 17 new schemes, which will add 15 kilometres to the network. Spend on active travel infrastructure has grown by 50% over recent years, rising from £12 million in 2022-23 to nearly £18 million in this financial year.

The ramping-up work that we have done has enabled us to put in place a sustainable pipeline of high-quality schemes. For example, we have in the region of 140 schemes in the system at different stages ranging from proof of concept to construction. As Members may be aware, Minister Kimmins yesterday gave an update on the six active travel signature projects on which work has commenced. We have talked about how we have increased capacity for design. Some years ago, one of our constraints was not having enough capacity for design. We have our internal design teams. They are supported by partner consultants, but putting out bigger, major signature schemes allows us to use the major works framework and bring in additional consultancy support for delivery. As we move forward, it is important that we have a conveyor belt of schemes so that, if there is a problem with one, we have another one coming behind it.

The NIAO report is very much about governance. As I said, we have accepted all its recommendations. Over recent years, we have recognised the delivery blockages and put in place measures to address them. Scaling up presents new risks as well as opportunities, and we welcome the Northern Ireland Audit Office assessment as a chance to strengthen governance, improve prioritisation and enhance transparency as we grow the programme. We have moved from foundation-building to real delivery, increased investment, strengthened capacity and the establishment of a robust pipeline that positions us to meet our statutory commitments.

Thank you for listening, and I very much welcome your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Colin, Peter and Sharan, thank you very much for coming along today. I will kick off and then hand over to the Deputy Chair. Unfortunately, the Committee has heard me talk a lot this morning — probably for the guts of an hour. I have a few questions, but I feel confident that other Committee members will have a range of questions.

The NIAO report identified a lack of transparency and stakeholder confidence in active travel and engagement: do you accept that criticism? You accepted the report, but do you accept that criticism?

Mr Hutchinson: We need to turn the clock back a few years. There has been a step change in engagement with interested parties, two of which are in the audience with us today. We have a much better relationship with the interested parties, and I can go as far as to say that there is agreement on a lot more of what we do today than there was a number of years ago.

There is still work to be done. One of the recommendations in the report was on setting up governance forums, which we had planned to do anyway. One of those will be a stakeholder forum that will have all the interested parties at the table to hear exactly what is going on. It will be completely transparent, and we will hear their views on how we should move forward with the delivery of active travel.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I will stay on that for a second, Colin. You mentioned the stakeholder forum as a methodology for establishing trust, and, in light of the NIAO report, part of your work is about doing that. Has the active travel stakeholder forum met? Has it been established? When will it meet? I do not know the answer to any of those questions. I should do so that I can, effectively, ping an official, but I do not. That is a nice open question for you.

Mr Hutchinson: The short answer is, "No, not yet", but the time frame is very —.

Mr Peter McParland (Department for Infrastructure): It is one of the recommendations that we accepted, and the implementation date for that is May 2026. Over the coming months, we expect to —.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): As long as it is not May 2027, Peter. [Laughter.]

Mr McParland: No. We have accepted all the recommendations in the report, including that on the three governance boards, and we have put in place an implementation date of May 2026. Over the coming months, we expect to introduce all those boards.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is fine. Will you give an indication of how often the active travel stakeholder forum will meet?

Mr McParland: Co-design is a key element of the recommendation for an active travel stakeholder forum. The first job after we invite people to become members of the forum will be an exercise to agree the terms of reference to make sure that there is a proper and meaningful co-design process.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK, I understand. That is fine.

The NIAO report states:

What is your assessment of the underlying reasons for the limited increases in active travel so far?

Mr Hutchinson: I will kick off, and Peter and Sharan can come in. There are a number of strands, and some of the work streams that I mentioned are key to that. We need to say more about behavioural change, because that is key. Investment in infrastructure is also key. Historically, we have underinvested in infrastructure. A couple of years ago, we took the team to the Netherlands to see how things are done there. We picked up a lot of strong learning points there, but the reality is that they have had generational change.

One of the key things that I explain again and again is that we are at a very early stage in the journey. You will pick up more from Peter's presentation on the active travel delivery plan, because that is key to how we move forward. We can focus on 20 schemes that we are delivering on the ground now. It might be a scheme of 1 kilometre or 5 kilometres that links a school to a community or links a community to a town centre or whatever that happens to be. Those individual linkages will only support people who live at one end of that link to go to the other end of the link. You will need a coherent network in place before you will see big shifts and changes. It will take decades to get to that point. You may want to come back to that when you have listened to the presentation on the active travel delivery plan, because it looks at a 10-year or 20-year vision for where we want to get to.

Before that plan, divisional teams were prioritising things on the basis of requests that were coming in. I am not saying that they were not doing it, but the focus was not on the bigger picture in the long term. You need to have a coherent network in order to give people really good choices. We will work our way there incrementally, but it will not be until later in the process that you will get big shifts of people moving towards that. That is particularly the case for cycling. We have a good network for walking.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I have one more question before I hand over to John. You mentioned investment on the way through there. When you use the word "investment", Colin, do you mean investment in active travel or investment in the Department? You mentioned that right at the start of your answer.

Mr Hutchinson: It is both. Ultimately, we are living in difficult times with regard to budgets. Between 90% and 95% of the activities that DFI carries out are driven by legislation. The Climate Change Act is one more piece of legislation that states what must be done. If we continue with our budgetary positions and there is not enough money to do everything, Ministers will still have difficult decisions to make on how that money is prioritised between all of the activities that the Department has to carry out.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I understand that. I came across figures recently that indicate that — you may or may not be aware of this — in the past 10 years the rise in DFI's budget has been second only to the rise in the Health budget. It has risen more than that of Education. DFI's budget has gone up by 60% in the past 10 years. The only budget that has gone up more than that is the Health budget. I was surprised to see that it exceeds Education. I know that the Minister's line is often that there is not enough money. Over the Christmas period, Sam McBride wrote an article about that and why there is not enough money. I just wanted to highlight that figure, because it shows that DFI has done fairly well over the past 10 years in terms of departmental budgets from the Northern Ireland Executive.

I will park my questions on that section and hand over to John.

Mr Stewart: Thanks, folks, for coming along and for your answers so far. I will try not to stray into the matter of the second evidence session, but, following on from the Chair's point about the Audit Office reporting that the Department has had a poor record on active travel and made little impact on it — Colin, I take your point — my initial question is this: is it a capital scheme first and foremost and a case of, "If we build it, they will come"? If not, what is the Department doing to actively encourage more people to get into it?

You talked about cycling proficiency. It strikes me that we have gone backwards on that issue. When I drive round the streets, I do not see anywhere near as many young people and children on their bicycles and scooters as I did when I was growing up. It feels as though, 25 or 30 years ago, there was encouragement to cycle and taking part in the cycling proficiency scheme was a foregone conclusion; now that scheme is one that we are hoping to promote. When will we reach the stage at which we get every young person on a bicycle and ready to go, alongside the capital works that are taking place to enable them to get on to the greenways and cycleways?

Mr Hutchinson: You have hit on a really important point about societal change. When I was a youngster, that was the —.

Mr Stewart: That was all that we had to do.

Mr Hutchinson: It was the same for me. Now, there are other things that are seen as more attractive than getting out into the fresh air and getting on to a bike or whatever. Our focus has to be on the behavioural change aspect. It is not just about getting into schools and running our programmes, which are important, or increasing that work. In the background, we are developing pilot projects that will look at how to provide the children's connection to school. If you encourage children to cycle or walk to school but they do not have the high-quality infrastructure that is needed for them to get from where they live to their school, it will not work — that is from a cycling perspective; in most cases, there will be reasonable walking facilities — so we are doing those projects to encourage them.

I come back to the Netherlands example. It did not happen overnight there. The Climate Change Act is key to getting proper investment in the long term to allow generational change here.

Mr Stewart: The Audit Office report highlighted the fact that we do not know exactly what constitutes road spend or road maintenance spend, ergo we do not know exactly what constitutes active travel spend as a percentage of that or what that can be spent on. At a previous meeting, we discussed what constitutes active travel spend, and I made the point that road maintenance could come under that heading: if we are not going to have cycle lanes everywhere, potholes could be included. Street lights are included in some areas but not others. Is there an ongoing discussion about what constitutes active travel spend and, for example, the overlap in spending when it comes to cycle lanes and roads and pavements?

Mr Hutchinson: I will start on that one and then let Peter come in to cover it. We have provided the Committee with some information on that. The key is that it is not just about building new infrastructure. We have to be sustainable and look at how we maintain everything that we build, but, if we do not maintain our existing walking and cycling infrastructure, it will not be usable or attractive, so it is key that we invest in that as well.

Mr McParland: Fundamentally, there are a couple of differences in how the road network, including the active travel network of footways and cycleways, is managed here and in other jurisdictions in the UK. In most of those, local authorities have a significant role, whereas, in Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure is the sole roads authority and our budgets therefore include not only capital investment but large budgets for maintenance of the existing network. That is one thing to bear in mind: it is not a like-for-like comparison with other jurisdictions. We had to interpret the law — the Climate Change Act — as it was enacted, under our arrangements. We carried out the required exercise, and the summary of what the Department considers to constitute spend for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists is now published to a certain level of detail on the Department's website.

We are seeing an increase in dedicated active travel investment, which the Chair spoke about, and further increases will be needed over the years as we head towards the Climate Change Act target. Changes to investment in maintenance and in existing facilities and things like that are wider discussions to be had. There are competing demands, obviously, so, if you spend more on maintaining footways, are you spending less on fixing potholes or running public transport services? All those things make up the transport budget.

Mr Stewart: OK. That is useful to know.

When it comes to the overlap with other Departments, there is a health benefit to active travel and an education element that fits into the schools through cycling proficiency. There is also the role of local councils. What is the Department doing to liaise with other Departments to ensure that everyone does as much as they can to promote active travel and reap its benefits? Is the working group under way? Who is involved in that?

Mr Hutchinson: Historically, we have worked primarily with the PHA. The health benefit is out there; everybody knows that there is a massive health benefit to people using active travel. We want to get as many Departments as possible involved with the stakeholder forum. Education is a key element. There is an argument that active travel should be part of the curriculum and that we should not do what we are doing through the programmes that we have. When we launched the active travel delivery plan — I have lost track of time: was that early last year?

Mr McParland: The consultation on the active travel delivery plan launched in June last year.

Mr Hutchinson: We had a launch event, and every Department and every council was represented. That showed the interest that there is. We had two Ministers — the Health Minister and the Infrastructure Minister — there as well. The interest is definitely there. Hopefully, that forum will help to expand the potential programmes that we come up with together.

Mr McParland: It is fair to say that there are already groups in place for interdepartmental working. For example, I sit on an interdepartmental working group on outdoor tourism, which is led by the Department for the Economy and Tourism NI. We have an input into that from the greenways perspective. Sharan can talk on — I can never remember its full name — the ADOG.

Ms Sharan Dustagheer (Department for Infrastructure): Yes, the all-department officials group. I sit on one for Making Life Better that is chaired by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) from the Department of Health and includes all the Departments.

Mr Hutchinson: Sorry, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Department for Communities. We have a joint programme with that Department. That should have been the first thing that I mentioned.

A lot of work is going on. If we could pull together all the Departments and have them feeding into one programme, that would be great.

Mr Stewart: Chair, I have a last, quick question, but I am conscious of time.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Go ahead, John.

Mr Stewart: I will go back to cycling proficiency. You talked about the numbers to date: I am keen to get a flavour of how that scheme will be grown over the coming years. Where do you hope to get to with it? A universal roll-out? That would be great. When do you expect to get to that point?

Mr McParland: I can speak to cycling proficiency. Every primary school in Northern Ireland is invited annually to participate in the cycling proficiency scheme. How many schools decide to take it up is a matter for them. The scheme is led by teachers, which means that it is extremely good value for money. A small number of staff in our team facilitate that and provide the information. They train the trainers. I have three members of staff who do that and the child pedestrian safety training. They could never train 4,000 young people every year. The scheme is generally run in the last school term as an after-school activity or as part of PE. My three members of staff could never train 4,000 children in that time. Pre COVID, our numbers were up to around 6,000, I think. There was a drop-off post COVID, and there were other issues around teachers. It is up to the schools to decide whether they can take part in the scheme.

That is only one of our programmes. There is the Active School Travel programme, which we fund and Walk Wheel Cycle Trust delivers in a smaller number of schools. There is also our child pedestrian safety training. The small group in my team leads on that behavioural change.

I do not know whether any of you have seen our recent videos on social media around child pedestrian safety training and junior road safety officers, which is a fantastic initiative where P7 pupils give road safety advice to younger pupils.

All those things are impactful in dealing with school-age people, but we need to think about behavioural change more widely. Creating behavioural change for adults and things like that is important. There are things that can be done. For example, Translink changed its travel app in the past couple of years to have a "Bike It" option, so you can choose a public transport journey that includes cycling. Often, depending on where you live, the combination of cycling and public transport could be the most efficient way to get from A to B.

Mr Stewart: The point that you make is valid. Quite often, too, it is young people leading the adults to change. We saw that with recycling. You sow the seeds in schools, and the kids tell their parents off. That can be similar when it comes to active travel: sow the seeds and poke the parents when they get home. The more that we can do on that and invest in that, the more it will be useful.

I have other questions, but I will save them for the second session.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Sharan, Adog was a rapper in the Nineties

, so well done with that acronym for a government Department.

Mr Boylan: He used a bike to go to work. [Laughter.]

Mr Dunne: Good to see you again, folks. The Audit Office report talks about the limited impact on active travel levels to date: at a high level, has this delivered value for money?

Mr Hutchinson: Every project has to go through a process and prove that it provides value for money, so there is some form of business case process to demonstrate value for money. The difficulty with this is that, as I said, you can provide one link that will have a certain number of people interested in using it. However, it is not until there is a coherent connective network with good choices, where you can go to school, go to town centres, connect to a greenway or go to another town — as there is in the likes of the Netherlands — that you will get mass movement to it. In the long term, yes, if we continue to invest, it will provide massive value for money and massive modal change. The short answer is, "Yes, we can say that it offers value for money". What we can say again — it will come through in Peter's presentation on the active travel delivery plan — is that, because we have a much better plan for how we will get to that coherent network, it will deliver much better value than it would if we did it in a piecemeal way.

Mr McParland: We can take it up a level and ask whether investment in pedestrian and cycling infrastructure provides good value for money compared with other transport infrastructure. Approximately a quarter of journeys in Northern Ireland are active travel journeys — walking or cycling. At the minute, we spend in the region of 5% to 6% of the transport budget in that area, despite the fact that it makes up a quarter of journeys. The other way to look at it is the total distance travelled. This is a rough estimate because, thankfully, we do not all have individual trackers to track exactly where we are walking —

Mr Dunne: Not yet. [Laughter.]

Mr McParland: — not yet, although Google has a fair idea — but our best information from the travel survey on total distance travelled is that active travel journeys make up in the region of 5% to 7%. Whether you take it on a quarter of all journeys — journeys that are made by everyone, as opposed to journeys that can be made only by those who drive a car — that relatively modest percentage of expenditure on infrastructure that enables people to walk, wheel or cycle is good value for money, and there are health, environmental and societal benefits. We talked about the vibrancy of places and people feeling safe and it being attractive to be out and spending time on streets or in city centres: that has to provide value for money.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that. That ties in with my next question, which is on maintenance. I am keen to establish where we are on that. Maintenance has been talked about at the Committee a number of times. Our colleague Keith Buchanan often raised it eloquently. It goes back to the fundamental issue that Colin touched on of existing footpaths that are in poor condition — overgrown hedges that restrict access for all pedestrians, including those with mobility needs, prams and so on — and potholes in the roads. You mentioned cyclists: if a road is safe for a cyclist, it will also be safe for larger vehicles such as cars and lorries. I am looking for clarity: what is the policy on it? Can your 10% be used to address issues like that? John mentioned street lights as well. I would appreciate a bit of clarity on that. We all have it in our areas: footpaths are blocked and unsuitable, and it is a risk to use some of them. The budget should be used to maintain what we have in conjunction with looking to the future and building on what you have talked about in order to improve the networks and active travel.

Mr Hutchinson: There is definitely a big challenge. It comes down to resource versus capital and the fact that we have the bigger issue of maintaining the entire network and the prioritisation —

Mr Dunne: Yes. Sorry to interrupt, but, as it stands, it looks as if the Department is struggling to maintain what it has. We all know that: even on the roads that we have travelled over to be here this morning, we can see it with our own eyes. It is such a major issue. The Deputy Chair mentioned the gritting over the past while. I know that that lies with a different directorate, but it is the same Department, and it is seen to be struggling to maintain what it has.

Mr Hutchinson: We have done things to try to circumvent the issues. From a maintenance perspective, one of the things that we are spending capital on is footway resurfacing. If a footpath is in a certain state — if it is so bad — we can use capital investment to bring it up to standard. At the end of a couple of years, we have given additional finance to that. You may be able to touch on that further, Peter.

Mr McParland: There is an ongoing review of road maintenance in the Department. That review has gone out, and one aspect of that is seeking the public's views on the importance given to the sustainable maintenance of footways and cycleways. That is ongoing. As you mentioned, that is outside our directorate. From what we have published on the internet, it is clear how much has been spent over the past three years on capital investment versus maintenance of the existing network: is that correct, Sharan?

Ms Dustagheer: Yes. We have published the dedicated active travel spend, which is the amount that we pay out from our active travel team predominantly on the likes of the Lagan pedestrian bridge. In the 10%, we have also included the maintenance and reconstruction of existing footways. That is part of our 10% calculation.

Mr Dunne: To clarify, I would like to think that active travel is very much about looking at the existing infrastructure, not looking purely at new projects.

Mr Hutchinson: We are definitely doing that to the extent that we have talked about. I have mentioned previously that we cannot just build new infrastructure and ignore what is there. It is a massive challenge, given the budgetary position that we find ourselves in. We are doing what we can within that. When we have the governance groups and stakeholders involved, we can have much wider discussions. As Peter said, there is something on that out for consultation at the moment. It would be wrong to say that it is not a significant challenge for us at this point in time.

Mr Dunne: My final question goes back to institutional knowledge in the Department against outsourced knowledge, which often comes at a cost and can be significantly expensive. Where is that balance? Is there a risk associated with that being outsourced rather than the knowledge being built internally?

Mr Hutchinson: I have probably answered that question on both of the previous occasions that I was here, because it comes up again and again. I am sure that colleagues sitting in the same place will have given answers to it as well. It is difficult to fill the vacancies in the industry. We have seen that over a significant period. In 2023, we increased the structure of the internal active travel team from a handful of people to around 50 people.

Ms Dustagheer: It was 59.

Mr Hutchinson: We have only got the high 30s in post.

Ms Dustagheer: There are 35.

Mr Hutchinson: It is impossible for us to attract the staff to do it all internally. On that basis, we need to get external consultancy support. That is not new. We have been doing that for 20 or 25 years, and that has been gradually moving further and further.

Mr Dunne: Local government is in a similar position.

Mr Hutchinson: The other point is that there are some specialist pieces of work, more so now than 10 or 15 years ago. There is a lot of environmental work that you need to buy in, because it is specialist. There is not enough of that work to keep entire teams going internally and keep them up to speed with current practice. If we could employ everybody directly through the Civil Service to deliver that work, we would deliver fantastic value for money, but this is the model that we are forced to use. I do not want to make it sound as though it is bad: it is delivering really good results, and the private sector brings a lot of fantastic benefits to the process.

Mr McReynolds: I thank the panel for coming in today.

Colin, I want to go back to a figure that you gave during your opening bit. You said that £150 million had been spent since the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2022, but then you mentioned £12 million to £18 million in active travel spend per year. Where is the gap there? Where else has the money gone over those three years?

Mr McParland: Colin will answer that properly, but, essentially, when we talk about the £50 million per year, that is the overall spend on active travel, which is the point that we were just talking about including maintenance of the existing network. When we talk about the change from £12 million to approximately £18 million, which is what we are sitting at now for capital delivery of active travel schemes and some of our increased investment in behavioural change work, which is small in comparison with the infrastructure investment increase, it is that ramping up. It is that side that is more likely to ramp up more steeply than the other side of the overall spend.

Mr McReynolds: What is the other side of the overall spend? I know about the capital side, but what is the other side that makes up the £50 million? Where has that gone?

Mr McParland: Sharan has that breakdown. It is published on the Department's website, so you can go in and see that, and we will be updating that. Part of the recommendations is around tracking, monitoring and evaluation. We will update the level of spend on an annual basis and the percentage against the active travel. It is a difficult process. You can do it at the start of the year with opening budgets, and you might know what percentage you are on, and then, during in-year monitoring, if the Department receives £30 million or £40 million for structural maintenance, that changes those percentages. It changes the overall transport budget. We are committed to publishing the annual spend across the different functions.
Maybe Sharan can break it down roughly into the average over the past three years.

Ms Dustagheer: The average over the past three years for dedicated active travel projects is about £12·7 million. The wider spend for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists is about £30·5 million, and staff costs associated with the overall delivery are about £8 million. It adds up to roughly £51 million.

Mr McReynolds: What does the £30·5 million entail?

Ms Dustagheer: The £30·5 million includes minor pedestrian enhancements at about £0·6 million. Maintenance and reconstruction of existing footways, cycleways and traffic signal crossings is about £8·9 million. Contribution to street lighting costs is about £18·8 million. Translink also spent some money on active travel; that is about £1·3 million. Then we have, to a small extent, our contribution to greenways through EU INTERREG, which is about £0·7 million. Towpath maintenance is about £0·1 million. That is all our spend.

Mr McReynolds: Was that capital spend £22 million or £23 million?

Ms Dustagheer: That is an average.

Mr McParland: That is a three-year average up to the end of 2024-25.

Mr McReynolds: Is the £8 million cost on staff just for the active travel unit, or is it for consultancy fees?

Mr McParland: No, it is not. It is all internal staff costs. It recognises that the active travel team spend 100% of their time on active travel, obviously, but there are a large number of other members of staff in the Department who spend a percentage of their time doing things like that. There will be people in maintenance sections who spend a percentage of their time resurfacing footways. There will be people in the traffic control centre who spend a percentage of their time putting in new pedestrian crossings or looking after existing pedestrian crossings. It is worked out as a percentage of the staff cost based on a percentage of the work in that area.

Mr McReynolds: As chair of the all-party group on active travel, I get a lot of questions about the fact that well over double the money is spent on what would not typically be seen as active travel-encouraging projects. The average is £12·7 million for the capital projects that will facilitate people to cycle and get around more easily. As an East Belfast MLA, I will talk up the Comber greenway and the Connswater greenway. There is £30·5 million being spent on footways and minor pedestrian enhancements, and £18 million on street lights, so more is spent on street lights than on those capital projects. That is where a lot of the frustration comes from. Is that encouraging people to get out and cycle more, walk more and ditch the car sustainably? Is that being looked at around value for money but also that modal shift that I certainly want to see?

Mr McParland: I mentioned that we were talking about a quarter of all journeys, so, in order to maintain the status quo, those are the type of figures that we are talking about to maintain the existing network so that it remains in a fit state for the people who are currently out walking, wheeling and cycling — it is safe and attractive for them to do so. The Audit Office report recognises that, if we are to have a step change in those levels, we are talking about increased investment, and that is probably within the Climate Change Act. The reason for increasing investment is to try to make a positive change. In the second session, we will talk about the active travel delivery plan and how we hope to do that in our towns and cities.

Mr McReynolds: Behavioural change is one of the pillars that were discussed earlier. I am a big supporter of the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, formerly known as Sustrans. I have gone along to the walk that takes place every year for young people in Braniel going to school, and I know that that happens across Northern Ireland.

To pick up on John Stewart's point about children who used to be seen more on their bikes, an anecdote that I always use is that I once saw two parents out on bikes with their two children at the Knock junction and have never seen that since. It just does not happen, because, despite those children being good on bikes and understanding cycling proficiency and being able to get around, they are terrified of the car dominance that we see at the busy junctions. For example, the Sydenham bypass got a cycle lane recently, but I can think of no one who has used it, because they are so terrified of what is going on. If you get hit by a car as a cyclist, you will not win that battle any time soon. How can we get people to cycle post-18 or post-primary? People will do that proficiency course but then just be terrified afterwards, because we are not doing enough in the immediate term to make it easier for them to get around.

Mr McParland: You are really asking about how we encourage adults.

Mr McReynolds: A hundred per cent.

Mr McParland: We will speak in the next session about improvements to the infrastructure and development of the infrastructure and how that impacts on more groups to a greater degree than others. More generally, if you provide access for people to make choices, they will make the choice that is most attractive to them. For example, there is the investment that we put into Belfast Bikes to bring in e-bikes and the refresh of Belfast Bikes. We have done that in partnership with Belfast City Council, which put its money where its mouth is. It was a 50% investment from our Department. Beryl is the contractor for that, and it is adept at growing its membership.

It knows how to encourage people, and we try to facilitate and support that. That growth will happen through those interventions on the infrastructure side, by supporting people to be more physically active, whether that is walking, wheeling or cycling, and on the promotion side, so that as many people as possible will be in the position to make those choices. The choices that an individual makes will always be their own. We want to allow people the ability to make the choices that they might not be able to make today.

Mr McReynolds: Colin, I am keen to hear about the trip to the Netherlands. I follow on social media a Canadian planner, Brent Toderian, and he always shows a photograph of the Netherlands in 1972 when it was full of cars, but it is now exactly as you described. You mentioned legislation: what legislation could we introduce to make your lives easier and get more people out and about and out of their cars? What best practice did you learn about on the trip?

Mr Hutchinson: I will start with the easier one: what did we learn on that trip? We learned an awful lot. You do not realise until you are out there. It is the Cycling —.

Ms Dustagheer: The Dutch Cycling Embassy.

Mr Hutchinson: It is the Dutch Cycling Embassy that facilitates that type of visit. We spoke to designers and were able to see their thought processes. We went out on bikes on their network in various places. We were up close, feeling exactly how it is done, and were able to hear about the challenges. It was interesting. When you look from the outside in, you think that everybody uses bikes over there and does not use cars, but, in fact, they still use cars. Even the most avid cyclists have a car as well, but the idea is very much that the car should be seen as the visitor on the streets. They do not ban cars from most streets, but there is a culture and an acceptance that pedestrians, cyclists and cars can live together. We have learnt a lot of things from that, and one of the points that I made earlier is that it is generational. You have to have good options and choices for people, which goes back to your point about how we get people out. That is key, in addition to the points that Peter made.

When it comes to legislative change, there are a few bits and pieces — potential tweaks to the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 — that would help deliver, for example, greenways and address the challenges that councils face in delivering greenways. I will probably go no further than that, but I really look forward to having the stakeholder group up and running, because I can see so many ideas coming out. We cannot take every idea and turn it into reality, but we can filter those ideas and get some really good ideas that will add to what we as a team and the consultants who are supporting us have already been doing in the thought process to get us to where we are.

We accepted this journey in late 2022, following the passing of the Act. We had to make massive changes to how DFI delivers on active travel. We have done that and have taken it seriously, but we have a massive journey ahead of us. We have to accept that.

Mr McMurray: Thank you for coming in. I have been listening and will probably ask a lot of questions about what you have said. If they stray into the next development, I apologise, but it is the nature of what you have done.

At the start, I want to be a critical friend. Full disclosure: I did not cycle in today, but, as someone who cycles regularly, including in Belfast, especially over the Christmas period, I have to say with the greatest respect that it is a hostile environment. It is a nightmare to cycle through. I try to follow some of the cycleways through the city, but they are illogical: you follow one-way systems that just end at traffic lights. It is difficult. It is not a hostile environment just when it comes to navigability; it is a physically hostile environment. Yes, we talk about behavioural change, but I, as a not-so-slight 90-kilogram fella, have people leaning out of their windows and shouting at me, just because I am on a bike.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Maybe they recognised that you are an MLA or something.

Mr McMurray: Without wanting to say too much, I hope that they do not. I would not want to incriminate myself. [Laughter.]

Mr Boylan: You are privileged in Committee; you are OK.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Yes, you are covered.

Mr McMurray: It comes back to a point that my colleague Stephen Dunne made: if a road is safe for a bike, it will be useful. That needs to be inverted. You have only to see the white bikes about the town to know that it is not safe. I say that as a 90-kilogram fella. It could have been my wife or whoever. It could have been my mother. To have people hurl abuse out of a car just for being a cyclist is ridiculous. Whatever about behavioural change, there should be behavioural change when it comes to how cyclists are seen first and foremost.

I will end on a positive note. Members have said that people are not on bikes. They want to come round my way. It is a bit like 'Mad Max', with kids on bikes, and Evel Knievel, with people jumping over other people. It is some craic round our way.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): A post-apocalyptic bike society.

Mr McMurray: Castlewellan post apocalypse. It is great.

Mr Boylan: That is a new movie title.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I need to get down there some time to see that.

Mr McMurray: When will we see tangible differences in cycling through our cities and our regional and local towns? You mentioned the 10-year vision and Amsterdam in the 1970s or whatever. I regularly get sent clippings of previous Ministers lauding greenway infrastructure. You have again lauded greenway infrastructure, yet we do not necessarily see it. I know the difficulties that go with it, but when will we see tangible benefits for cyclists?

Mr Hutchinson: There are a couple of points. The presentation that Peter will give will cover the wider Province. We have accepted previously that we are catching up with the Belfast cycle network, but we have made good strides in that regard. A key change for us moving forward will be the eastern transport plan. I am not sure what stage that is at in consultation at the moment, but it takes a completely different view of how different modes of transport are allocated to different streets to try to deal with the issue.

When will we see change? I made this point earlier and have made it on many occasions: if you want to go on a safe route, you pick something that we have built over the past year or two, but it will take you only from A to B, until such times as we have the cycles of investment over many years and have that coherent network, where you can jump on a bike or walk and go wherever you want to go. As I said, it was generational change for the Netherlands, and it will be generational for us. It will be dictated by the funding that we have as well. It will definitely not be an overnight fix, but there are things that we can do along that way to deal with localised problems as well as the global picture.

Mr McParland: I do not disagree with your characterisation of some parts of Belfast. This stuff is not rocket science. Colin talked about the car as the guest in certain areas. That is to do with speed limits and the number of vehicles. You cannot consider a dual carriageway to be the same as an urban street in a city centre. In our delivery plans and our prioritisation, we are trying to look at the places that can have the most benefit to people early on and then to build up the network on that basis and work from there.

As Colin said, the changes that we are making now and the delivery against a prioritised plan will mean that, hopefully, everyone will be able to see over the short, medium and long term what we intend to do over the coming years, no matter where you happen to live.

Mr McMurray: Thank you. I want to lean into what my colleague said. You gave some good figures and clarification of figures and stuff like that. To go back to a broader point, some definitions of active travel spend have changed, and my colleague rightly pointed out issues such as potholes and lighting. I have a slight concern about some of those changes. Can they be labelled as things that help active travellers? Probably, yes. However, do they encourage active travellers? Possibly not. I am not really sure. How did some of those definitions and the changes to them come about? Was it a whole rewrite? When we go on to talk about some of the more tangible outcomes and things to do with greenways, will those definitions, dare I say, be flipped again, if we say, "We can spend the money" — forgive my term; I am being a critical friend — "on legitimate active travel ways here"? Will that happen? Will the definitions be flip-reversed again?

Mr Hutchinson: In short, the Act, in the first instance, does not define what makes up active travel spend. There is no definition of that in the Act. To work out 10% of the transport budget, we looked at what is transport and what is not in DFI's budget, and we highlighted all of the activities that fall into that. In doing that, we wanted to look not necessarily at things that would encourage active travel or that would be nice to have but at other activities that we already do and have been doing for a long time and that are essential contributors to active travel.

One of those is street lighting. We took 50% of the street lighting budget, which is conservative; you could take a lot more. If you do not have street lighting, you will not be able to encourage people to walk or cycle in the dark, and, to support that, we have moved on our policy on street lighting for greenways in the past year or two. The answer to that question used to be, "No, we are not going to light greenways", but we have moved to a policy that recognises that we have to light them, otherwise they will not be used for most of the year.

Maintaining existing footways is the capital resurfacing element of it, and that was around £8 million. Again, it is essential that we maintain what we currently have, otherwise using it will not be attractive. We are open to discussion and to be critiqued on anything that we do, but our view is that the activities that we have put in there are essential activities to ensure that we encourage active travel.

Mr McMurray: You have touched on my final point already. Hopefully, the stakeholder forums will progress. I fully support greenways, but, at a local level, there are other interests in railway lines and suchlike. I wanted to put that out there. Sometimes, a lack of communication can lead to miscommunication and what have you. I want to put that on your radar, and I think that it is, because I see you nod. I will leave it at that.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you, Andrew. Cathal is next.

Mr Boylan: Chair, I do not think that there is very much left to say.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Come on. You will come up with something, brother.

Mr Boylan: It is good to hear about the east Belfast active travel plan, and I welcome Peter back to the conversation. For those who represent rural areas, it is a completely different issue. John's question about cycling proficiency and working in schools was interesting, because, at the end of the day, you will have to change mindsets anyway. Hopefully, a lot of those young people will go to college, university and everything else, and there will be opportunities for them to do that sort of thing, but it is about changing mindsets. Are those figures down? We used to go out to schools to do cycling proficiency tests for road safety: where are we with encouraging that when it comes to the numbers?

My other question is about some of the recommendations arising from the report. The confidence of stakeholders will be a big issue for the forum. Local authorities have a big part to play: where do you see that role? I know that you are setting things up and that you will have that engagement, but it will be a key element. Where do you see that going?

In case I am not in for the next session, I will throw this question in now. Local development plans (LDPs) will have a big part to play. You may have looked at them already, but they will certainly have to be looked at in the new areas of development. What are your views on that? If you want to answer the LDP question, you can, or you can leave it until afterwards.

Mr Hutchinson: The intention is that the local development plans will take cognisance of the active travel delivery plan, but the active travel delivery plan has to be fluid enough to deal with future development. In the first instance, it will have to acknowledge what is development land, what is developed and what is not developed.

The rural side of things is critical to us, because the active travel delivery plan deals with settlements of more than 5,000 people. That covers a lot of settlements in Northern Ireland — 42, I think — but it does not deal with the rural bit. We get requests continually for footway linkages and cycleways across the more rural parts of the Province, and we prioritise those. Historically, we have prioritised them, but, to be fair, they were getting scored against non-active travel schemes, which made it difficult for them to score highly. The short answer is that we get those requests and deal with them, and we are building rural links. In the background, we are also looking at an improved prioritisation model that uses the same criteria as we use for the key towns. Peter will cover that in the next session on the active travel delivery plan. Ultimately, it will give a much fairer basis for rural investment. It is certainly not forgotten about, and, if requests come in, we deal with them. They are certainly not being ignored.

Mr Boylan: It is a bigger challenge. We talk about a modal shift and everything else. It is part and parcel of a bigger programme. We need to go out to the schools. When rural areas are mentioned, it is always about greenways or something; it is nothing else. There are good opportunities there.

Mr McParland: Yes, Cathal, there are opportunities in rural settlements in particular. Although we have been concentrating over the past 18 months or so on the larger urban settlements, which deal with approximately two thirds of the population, another lump of the population lives in open countryside. Prioritising cycle links for someone who lives in open countryside would be difficult and not the right thing for us to do. However, a large number of people live in smaller rural settlements, and a network plan and good active travel in a small rural settlement will look very different from how they look in a large city. That is where we will turn our attentions next. In order for us to make that step change from localised divisional prioritisation to having plans in place, we had to start somewhere, so we started in the places where most people are concentrated and living, because that is where active travel has its benefits. It is the journeys that are 1 kilometre to 5 kilometres in radius.

Mr Boylan: This is my final point, Chair. I think of my area. Milford village is outside Armagh city, but it has been built up, and they have nearly joined together. Such opportunities could be looked at. I use that as an example. I am sure that the same could be done for other small settlements on the periphery of large areas. I am just fighting the corner of rural areas while you are here.

Mr McNulty: I 100% agree with Cathal: a new greenway from Milford to Armagh would be wonderful.

Increasing active travel is a win-win. How much of the £150 million that you mentioned is from the Taoiseach's Shared Island Fund?

Mr Hutchinson: None at all. We got €2 million, which was announced a few weeks ago, for cross-border greenway initiatives, but that £150 million is all from the Northern Ireland block.

Mr McNulty: OK. You mentioned the Carlingford greenway, which is a wonderful scenic route. It is spectacular. The vistas of the Mournes, the Cooley Mountains, Slieve Foy and Carlingford lough are world class. It is a wonderful experience to walk or cycle along there. It is special, and everyone involved in it should be proud.

On that front, is there a possibility of creating a link greenway between the canal on both sides of Newry city? Where are you with that connection piece? Will a greenway on the towpath along the Newry canal to Portadown be delivered? To what degree are you coordinating and collaborating with Waterways Ireland to explore the potential for a joined-up approach? From the SDLP's perspective, we want to see the reconstruction of the Newry canal into a navigable canal and its potential connection downstream to the Ulster canal so that you can navigate through Ireland from Carlingford lough to Dublin and Limerick. It would be amazing for that facility to be provided. Are you working hand in glove with Waterways Ireland to explore those possibilities and big, hairy, audacious goals?

It would be wonderful to create the cultural change that you speak of, which is necessary. On that front, the Audit Office report expressed concern about governance and addressed that in recommendation 1: to what degree is that a concern?

Mr McParland: I will start off with the Newry inner city canal greenway, which is what we are calling the project. It is one of the Department's signature projects. The Minister announced progress on that yesterday. We have commissioned design engineers to look at linking the northern end of the Carlingford greenway to the Newry canal towpath. That scheme is just kicking off. We will work with Waterways Ireland. I am not even 100% sure that Waterways Ireland is responsible for the bit of the canal that runs through the centre of Newry, but, if it is, our project team will definitely get in touch with it about that section of the greenway. We will develop that scheme. It is fair to say that, given the size and nature of that scheme, a lot of work will have to be done in the background. There are environmental considerations and such things. Our design team will work in the background on all those things and identify the key stakeholders and who owns all the land. They will then develop preliminary proposals.

For active travel projects going forward, one of the key things that we will do is have meaningful engagement earlier with the public, communities and key stakeholders. Once we have developed reasonable preliminary proposals, we intend to say to the public, "Here are our first thoughts. What do you think?". That will inevitably bring out additional information that is helpful to us and helps to inform the detailed design. Hopefully, that is a good-news story for you, Justin.

Colin can cover the governance arrangements and the change that we are making.

Mr Hutchinson: Given the shift since the Act has been in place and the amount of investment that we will have moving forward, we had accepted, even before the NIAO came in, that we needed to have different governance arrangements in place. We already had governance arrangements in place. Staff had to follow processes to make sure that a scheme demonstrated value for money in order for it to be delivered. Given the scale that we are moving to, we have to put in place different governance processes. We have known that for some time, and we have been developing the governance. We are talking about the stakeholder forums that we have, the forum where we bring together the councils and the programme board for delivering them and putting them in place. They are very close to being in place.

We focused over the past 18 months on delivering the active travel delivery plan and getting schemes on the ground. The governance processes were coming along with those. We are at the point where they will be fully in place in the coming months.

Mr McParland: In May 2026.

Mr Hutchinson: Yes. The second part of that recommendation is that we review those governance processes. It is clear in NIAO's report that, from its work, it was aware of the structures that we were planning to put in place, and now we are going to do that. I have no concerns about gaps that risk us not delivering value for money in what we already do. I see the governance processes as enhancing what we do at the moment, hopefully to a large degree.

Mr McNulty: In that same report, there is a damning comment:

That is a damning comment for the Audit Office to have made. Have you any response?

Mr Hutchinson: It rightly looked back at the cycle strategy of 2015, which had ambitious targets for active travel take-up. Following one of the recommendations from the Audit Office, we are looking again at those targets as part of our work. Here is a point I made earlier: as you build small additions to the network to attract local people to it, you will have very small increases in usage because of the area of influence that you have. However, as you go through years and decades of building a coherent network, all of a sudden, you get to a point where people have absolutely fantastic high-quality choices to use active travel. It is at that point that you will see the increases. We see that, since 2015, England, Scotland, Wales and down South all have shifted how they measure what active travel targets should be. Again, that is one of the recommendations in the report that we will grapple with. Hopefully, we will be helped out by the stakeholders who come on board as part of the discussion about our realistic long-term plans and how we measure their success or otherwise.

Mr McNulty: Is the funding gap between the £85 million that was recommended and the £50 million that you received a big impediment to progress?

Mr Hutchinson: We have said openly for the past couple of years that you cannot go from whatever we were spending — say, £10 million per year — to spending £50 million overnight and do it sensibly. You need to plan for it. That is what we are doing. The active travel delivery plan is being updated, and we will review the greenway plan. We need to have plans in place that are credible, consulted on and bought into by everybody in order to deliver proper, focused value for money. Assuming that we get the budget year-on-year, we aim to hit the 10% target set out in the Act by 2030.

Mr McNulty: Peter, you mentioned open countryside. Has a scoping exercise been conducted to establish a rights of way network that would link country roads through old rights of way? If that is not pursued, they will fall into disrepair and be lost. Existing rights of way are used by local people. Can we establish networks to protect those rights of way?

Mr McParland: I am not a massive expert on rights of way, but we mentioned the issue earlier in relation to developing greenways and things like that. There are a number of mechanisms by which authorities can assert a right of way. Typically, councils take the lead on rights of way that are not part of the road network. If we have the road network and we develop a greenway, a footpath or whatever it might be, it becomes part of the adopted road network, rather than relying on a right of way for that infrastructure.

Mr McNulty: I am not talking about rights of way; I am talking about country pathways through fields that are not maintained by —.

Mr McParland: That is what I am saying. My understanding is that that is predominantly outside the Department for Infrastructure's remit. I know, however, that it is one of the things that councils look at when they think about developing off-road paths and things like that as part of their greenways or other active travel paths, for want of a better word. That is the difference between that and our adopted road network routes. That is partly why councils have a greater input into the greenway side of things.

Mr McNulty: Thanks very much for your evidence, folks.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you very much, Justin.

Before I bring Peter McReynolds in, may I ask for a quick clarification? I am concerned about keeping the Committee quorate at the tail end of the meeting, because we have another session to come.

Peter, you mentioned that the Newry inner city canal greenway was one of the signature projects; I think that you used that phrase. How were those signature projects chosen?

Mr McParland: When we started 18 months or so ago doing the preliminary work on a credible plan that would bring us to the Climate Change Act objective by a reasonable date, we identified the fact that we could build that up through a combination of small, medium and major projects. Major projects, by their nature, take longer to deliver than smaller projects. We wanted to get going by establishing a small number of geographically spread major projects and get those into the design pipeline early, because we know that they will take longer to deliver. The combined cost of those projects will be somewhere between £70 million and £80 million. They will develop and come to fruition over a number of years, probably starting in and around 2029. That means that, when we need to make that last step up to meet the Climate Change Act objectives, we can expect some of the projects that we need to be shovel-ready.

The projects were chosen because we wanted a geographical spread. In each division, there would have been some plans in place and some routes that were obvious, but they might have been too big for a small project team to take forward. For example, the Newry project is a no-brainer. A greenway is coming and you have a canal path, so you should link the two of them. The Black Paths network is a fantastic network around Craigavon, so it makes perfect sense to connect it to Portadown train station. The Sydenham greenway was part of the Belfast cycling network delivery plan. We knew that it was going to cost in excess of £5 million, so it was an obvious one in the eastern division.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I want to wind you down there, Peter. In essence, the projects make sense, but I assume that there was some analysis behind them.

Mr McParland: There was a sifting process. Each division may have proposed four projects, and we sifted it down to the six most obvious projects.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is fine.

I will bring Peter McReynolds in quickly.

Mr McReynolds: I have two minor points to make.

Colin, you mentioned street lights. I think that issue is mentioned in our packs this week. Is Philip Robinson responsible for street lighting in DFI?

Mr McParland: Philip is responsible more for traffic signals.

Mr McReynolds: Is somebody responsible for street lighting in DFI? Does the £18 million that was spent on street lighting costs refer to the use of the active travel budget in conjunction with their work? Are they repairing, replacing, enhancing or building new street lighting infrastructure? How does it differ from that other budget, and what is the other budget?

Mr Hutchinson: In the exercise that we carried out, we looked at the activities that we historically carried out and those that we currently carry out, which are essential to ensure that we attract people to use active travel. Those are activities that, historically, have happened to assist active travel. This really gets down to pedantic points about terminology: when we talk about dedicated active travel infrastructure spend, we are talking about new infrastructure. When we talk about the 10% spend on active travel, that includes the dedicated new infrastructure spend and spend by other parts of the Department on things that contribute towards essential active travel activities.

Mr McReynolds: Red lights were put in on the Comber greenway, which was, I think, a pilot project, so it is not about looking at lighting greenways. How do you select which street lights will be installed, enhanced, repaired or whatever it may be and know whether it comes out of your budget? How does the person responsible in DFI for day-to-day spending from the other budget establish what they are doing?

Mr McParland: It is not the case that we have direct responsibility for the Department's street lighting budget. The exercise recognised that the Department's street lighting budget performed a valuable service for people who walk and cycle. It is a massive exercise every year to collate at the centre all the individual budget lines that people are responsible for and come up with the overall spend on active travel. It is not that I have a say in how the street lighting team spends its money — it spends its money in the way that is the best value for money — but it is recognised that street lighting performs a valuable thing for people who walk and cycle at night.

Mr McReynolds: Honestly, this is nearly my last question.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Can it be short?

Mr McReynolds: I will ditch my other one.

Will you give me an example of where that has happened in Belfast, so that I can imagine it? Where has that happened?

Mr McParland: For example, the active travel capital budget put in the new environmentally friendly street lights on the Comber greenway. The electricity bill for those street lights for evermore still has to be paid by the Department, and it is paid by the people responsible for street lighting.

Mr McReynolds: So it is not a case of repairing and enhancing etc; it is also about facilitating active travel.

Mr McParland: It is having them there.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Maolíosa, do not worry: I have not forgotten about you, brother, even though you are attending virtually. The floor is yours.

Mr McHugh: Go raibh maith agat. Fáilte romhaibh uilig.

You are all welcome. Being new to the Committee, I was glad of your presentation. I want to go into a couple of issues quickly.

It is disappointing to hear that the cultural change will take so long. You gave the example of the Netherlands, which has a landscape that lends itself to cycling and so on that we do not have. When it comes to travelling to school, they used to say, when I was young, that you were nobody unless you went to school in a bus, because we had to go 20 miles to Omagh to go to a grammar school. It seems to be the case nowadays that, even in the case of primary schools, you are nobody unless you go to school in a car. How do you influence that cultural shift, and to what extent do you have a responsibility for that?

I turn quickly to the second aspect of my questions. It is disappointing to hear that priority is being given to areas with a population of 5,000 and more. Should provision not be rural-proofed and take on a responsibility to places with fewer than 5,000 people, such as my town, which has a population of between 3,000 and 4,000, so that rural dwellers are not left out in the cold and accommodated only after everyone else?

Mr Hutchinson: Your first point was about cars and schools. We talked about a couple of pilot projects that we are bringing forward to provide good choices for active travel by walking and cycling from communities to schools. If there is that option, we can make it less attractive for cars to park in school streets. Peter may provide a bit more detail on an example of a recent scheme that we completed in Belfast that does not all but some of that and, from our perspective, has been successful. It is a work in progress.

Peter, do you want to touch on the other points?

Mr McParland: Yes. We recognise that issue. We are talking about relatively small and inexpensive interventions. If the problem is pavement parking, you can put bollards in to stop people parking on pavements. If the problem is that children cannot cross the road safely, you can reduce the speed limit, put in a zebra crossing or do something like that. Maolíosa, I want to reassure you that we want to have a geographically fair allocation across the North. It is fair to say that deciding how we split that allocation and how the divisional teams determine what proportion of their effort and time goes into a rural or an urban scheme will be an iterative process over the years. I am trying to say — maybe I did not communicate it properly — that we understand that we need to develop a different way of looking at small villages. They are not the same as large cities. We have to work out how we improve active travel for people who live in small villages, and that will look different to cycling around a large city.

Mr McHugh: On that point, I used an example of a small town, but some our larger towns in close proximity to our cities suffer the same consequences as a result of a policy that tends to accommodate places with a greater number of people.

Mr McParland: Maolíosa, it is not that our policy does not think about such places. Everybody is equal. Everybody is a taxpayer. We want to develop a means of fair allocation on a geographical basis. It is easy for us: we have four divisions, so that is our first split. We then start looking at whether there is a fair allocation across the council areas in that division. Then, we are down to considering individual communities and talking to local councils about where the priorities for investment should be in that council area.

I can give you an example of a scheme between Crumlin and Glenavy. Glenavy is a village about 2 miles from Crumlin. That distance is easy to cycle. We are developing a scheme at the minute to improve the active travel linkage from that village to the larger town nearby.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you very much for those questions, Maolíosa, and for your response, Peter.