The aim of the project is to empower adults in the London Borough of Merton to start cycling as their primary means of transport by providing training in safe effective road cycling and related skills.

There are three objectives: to give complete beginner training to 16 people; to give basic maintenance and on-road training to 40 people; to give advanced road training to 24 people.

And there will be three elements to the training:

1) Complete beginner training. This is for those who have never learned to ride a bike. The average complete beginner needs 1-2 hours to get going and learn basic control skills. This will be achieved on a rolling programme where trainees will turn up at 30-minute intervals and receive one-to-one training to start them off, then develop basic riding skills in pairs or small groups of three.

2) Maintenance and on-road training. This teaches people the basic skills of bike maintenance and introduces people to correct, assertive road riding techniques. It is carried out in groups of about ten people over nine hours.

3) Advanced training. People accompanied one-to-one on the actual journeys they wish to make, most commonly their journeys to work, which they wish to make, and complex traffic behaviours are practised. We will give people an average of two hours of such accompaniment.

Judging by previous demand it is expected that a large majority of trainees will be female, thus helping to redress gender inequality in this healthy and beneficial activity. By making training free for people on benefits this programme will assist the mobility of people who are most likely to be lacking effective affordable transport.

Better signing, lighting, maintenance and removal of ‘no cycling’ notices are all recommendations for improvements to two of Merton’s cycle routes, according to a report into the quality of routes forming part of the London Cycle Network (LCN).

Consultants appointed by the LCN Project Manager surveyed the route from New Malden to Colliers Wood and the Wandle Route and found that several improvements were needed to both to bring them up to standard. Signing was especially poor, the consultants noted, with one route needing "to be comprehensively signed" and another needing "map reading skills of a very high order, willingness to try several possible alternatives and courage to ignore potentially misleading blue signs on crossing routes".

Some surfaces needed renewing and required better maintenance "one gulley grating ...was sufficiently dangerous to throw a cyclist off". Intersections and crossing points with busy roads were also highlighted for attention, with suggestions for central refuges and installation of toucan crossing lights to make the routes safer.

The report complements the survey carried out by MCC itself last autumn and demonstrates that council action is needed urgently to bring existing cycle routes to the standard required by the LCN.

The campaign also commented that routes for shorter and local journeys sho