Congratulations on your excellent article about the Scottish Government's new target for 10% of all journeys to be by bicycle by 2020 ("Cycle groups attack freeze on annual spending", The Herald, May 29). Unfortunately, investment in cycling is being cut at the same time, as you point out.

Congratulations on your excellent article about the Scottish Government's new target for 10% of all journeys to be by bicycle by 2020 ("Cycle groups attack freeze on annual spending", The Herald, May 29). Unfortunately, investment in cycling is being cut at the same time, as you point out.

The Cycling Action Plan, out for consultation, contains many excellent ideas and no money to implement them. Sadly, its exciting words are being used as a smokescreen to hide the fact that investment in cycling has been on a downward slide throughout the SNP's period in office.

Cycling investment in Scotland has been cut from a miserable 0.93% of the Scottish transport budget, under the previous Holyrood administration, to 0.81% under the SNP in 2008-09, with indications that it will fall to perhaps 0.66% in the current financial year.

I challenge the Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson, to justify the claim that there is "record" investment in cycling.

Investment has suffered, first, because of a major cut in funding for Sustrans, which works with councils across Scotland to build new cycle facilities. Secondly, funding for the Regional Transport Partnerships, which invested at a sensible level in cycling, was transferred by the government to councils, many of which use it for other purposes.

This is purely a matter of the Scottish Government's transport priorities. In the recent budget it found more than £150m extra for trunk roads, while the budget lines for active travel (walking and cycling) were frozen at £20m.

The Parliament's own all-party Transport Committee called for proper investment in cycling, as did the Herald editorial of May 6. The Association of Directors of Public Health is even advocating 10% of transport budgets going on walking and cycling.

The Scottish Government itself points to countries such as Denmark as examples to emulate, and the new 10% target is, potentially, a hugely ambitious step in that direction. The difference, however, is that, whilst Denmark has invested significantly and consistently over many years to achieve its targets, the Scottish Government is investing next to nothing. It is not setting a target for cycling, but a target for ridicule.

Dave du Feu, Edinburgh Road, Linlithgow.