£3.5m for London cycle routes

Cycling in London is set for a boost after a national project linking thousands of miles of cycle routes won £50million of Lottery funding.

The capital will receive more than £ 3.5million to fund six key schemes masterminded by Sustrans, the walking and cycling campaign group.

Campaigners estimate that when completed, the routes will be used by around 1.5 million Londoners and help to get even more people to take up cycling.

The Connect2 project involves building bridges, tunnels and crossings to create new cycle routes and improve the quality of existing routes.

The £1.4million Ingrebourne Valley Links scheme in Havering will receive £700,000 of the Lottery money.

Other beneficiaries include walking and cycling routes in lslington (£600,000), the Croydon Parks Link scheme (£550,000) and the Westbourne railway bridge and links project in Paddington (£600,000). The Senegal Bridge Links scheme in Bermondsey will get £600,000, while a new bridge over the Regent's Canal at Bethnal Green, part of the Tower Hamlets and Mile End project, will get £300,000 towards the overall cost of £800,000.

Carl Pittam, London director of Sustrans, said the new links would close "vital gaps" in important cycling and walking routes. He called the money great news for London.

In most cases the new routes run close to existing or proposed parts of the London Cycle Network.

Connect2 won the People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway in a public vote, beating the Eden Project in Cornwall, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and the Black Country Urban Park in the West Midlands.