PUPILS do not cycle to Merseyside schools because the bike racks are “woefully inadequate”, a committee of MPs has heard.

Even schools awarded grants to make life easier for cyclists had failed to put in the bike sheds so badly needed, Merseyside’s “travelwise co-ordinator” complained.

Sarah Dewar also warned that attempts to boost walking and cycling to school were jeopardised by the drying up of funding for “school travel advisors” in just two years’ time.

And she called for urgent action to ensure all the new schools being built across Merseyside were designed for walkers and cyclists – instead of motorists.

Giving evidence to the Commons transport committee, Ms Dewar said: “Cycle parking is woefully inadequate at all schools.

“Even where schools have received grants, there is not enough parking to achieve the level of cycling that we want to achieve in schools.

Warning of the threat to school travel advisors, Ms Dewar added: “There is a risk that the crux of the school travel plan programme will not be funded beyond 2010.

“They are absolutely essential. They act as a motivator and give schools someone they can go to for information and to solve problems.”

The Merseyside Local Transport Plan (LTP) partnership was asked to give evidence to the committee’s inquiry into school travel because of its proud record in encouraging parents to leave their cars at home.

Bringing together the councils in Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral, it boasts Britain’s biggest cycle training programme, working with more than 4,500 school children in just 12 months.

Around 71% of schools now have school transport plans, with the remaining 177 on course to follow suit by a government deadline of 2010.

Among schools with school travel plans, car use fell by 2.4% over the five years to 2006 – while it rose by 5% at schools not involved in the programme.

But, Ms Dewar told the MPs, the partnership’s target for a further 1.1% reduction by 2011 was more difficult to achieve, because it was now working with more secondary schools.

Modern teaching meant that pupils now had lessons at up to three different secondaries on the same day – journeys that were almost impossible to achieve on buses.

Ms Dewar also turned her fire on local health trusts for concentrating on PE lessons in schools, rather than on how pupils got to lessons.

Her written evidence said: “There is a failure to act upon the recognition that walking and cycling present the most powerful tools in tackling obesity.”