A charity specialising in clean transport has been given £20m of funding from Transport Scotland to distribute for the delivery of 160 cycling and walking projects across Scotland.

Sustrans will distribute grants through its Community Links programme – a five year partnership between the charity and local authorities, government agencies, national parks and other charities.

Beneficiaries are required to raise match funding in order to receive grants.

Previous projects by Community Links have tackled dangerous junctions and busy roads as well as smaller projects to improve everyday cycling and walking spaces.  

The funding is part of an on-going commitment by the Scottish government to increase the number of bike journeys by 10 per cent and improve walking environments in partnership with the Cycling Action Plan for Scotland (CAPS) and the National Walking Strategy (NWS).

Tom Bishop, community links coordinator for Sustrans said: “From the level of submissions received this year, it is clear that there is a real appetite to improve cycling facilities across Scotland. Our Community Links team has worked hard to select the highest quality projects to fund and we look forward to working with partners to ensure their successful delivery.”     

Projects set to benefit from the scheme over the next year include the Causey project in Edinburgh which will transform a space dominated by vehicular traffic into an environment better suited to walking and cycling.

Town centres of Dunblane, Kirkwall and Kirkintilloch will be transformed into bike and foot-friendly places and a 5km section of dual carriageway in south Lanarkshire will be de-dualled and converted into a traffic-free cycling and walking space.