The C2W scheme is outrageously unfair and as this thread demonstrates, open to serious abuse. This is not a criticism of the OP but of this not fit for purpose scheme.
It is simply wrong, immoral that individuals who wish to spend £0000s on a bike get help in this manner when such help is denied to others.
I'm very much in favour of supporting those who need bikes to commute. Support for those who wish to buy recreational bikes should either be extended to all cyclists or abolished.
The scheme is broken and should be abandoned in favour of a new scheme which is not open to such obvious abuse.
Why should some who is recreational cyclist be denied financial support to purchase a bike?
I agree that it's open to abuse, but not that it's unfair. It's not the case that support for buying bikes for recreational use is
denied to recreational cyclists. It's denied to everyone. It's just that some people can abuse the scheme to get it.
I can't see any case at all for it it be extended to all cyclists. It has a very specific remit: to encourage people to cycle to work, as per the name.
Maybe they view the inevitable abuse as just an incidental cost of achieving their aim, which is getting people cycling to work. Maybe they've factored it in and decided it's acceptable as long as it gets some people cycling to work. Maybe, maybe not.
It's not unfair. In the same way that it's not unfair that my local shop doesn't have security scanners on the doors with the result that some people can nick tins of beans, while I pay for them. Waaah, where are my free beans? No fair!
