TonyR wrote:
I thought their stuff "really worked" -at least that's what they claimed when they made their bids for yet more £10's millions in public money. So why trust them this time?
If you base your philosophy on "I thought" and "trust" then you'll continue to wass in the wind. Better, perchance, to actually look at results and make a judgement based on data.
For instance, how many people can i see in my area that have started riding or got back into riding due to the CTC. Answer: 0. How many due to the previous Sustrans project? Answer: getting on for 1000. So, as an LA, where am I going to spend my money?
In your area YMMV, but I speak only based upon the data I have.
Personally I'd much rather CTC were heavily involved in the project, and, indeed, they have been invited to be involved....but they didn't even bother to decline, they just ignored it. Although it could have been worse - they were invited to help out on a previous project but all that they offered was an A4 sheet listing funding opportunities. Then when the project proved to be highly successful due to the work of the volunteers on the ground, the CTC tried to claim it as their own. Thankfully a number of staff changes have happened since then.