Bradford could be in with a chance of becoming a cycling demonstration city' after the announcement of a £140 million investment programme by the Government yesterday.

The funding was announced by Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly and aims to cut road congestion, improve air quality and create more opportunities for exercise.

Its goals are to get half a million more ten-year-olds across England to take part in cycle training and build another 250 safe links to schools, connecting about 500 more schools to the National Cycle Network.

The money, which will be invested over the next three years, will form part of the Government's forthcoming strategy to tackle obesity. It will help to create a next wave of cycling demonstration towns as well as the first large demonstration city - which could be Bradford.

The millions will go to Cycling England, the body set up by the Government to promote cycling, which will be seeking bids for the cycle demonstration towns and city in the spring. There are currently six towns which promote cycling and in one year they achieved an average 20 per cent increase in cycle trips.

Cyclist Anthony Gill, Bradford Council's community sports network co-ordinator, said he hoped the city had a much better chance this time round of getting the specialist designation because of all the work that had taken place.

"We've set up the Bradford Cycling Development Group which brings all the interested parties together," he said. "At our first meeting in October we identified 20 hotspots where cycling is already going on in some form and we now have a bid in to Sport England for about £500,000 to develop these areas further.

"There is also the Sustrans Connect2 programme, which won lottery funding, to create a bridge over Manchester Road, which will form a safe cycling route from Odsal into the city centre."

He also mentioned CTC, the national cyclists' organisation which has just appointed a community cycling development officer to Bradford. The city is part of CTC's Cycling Champions Programme, which aims to encourage thousands of people to jump on their bikes when making local journeys rather than using their cars.

The development officer, Vivean Carnea, will take up her post next month, based at the Bradford Community Environment Project charity.

And CTC is urging the Council to work together to try to get a slice of the new £140m in funding.

The organisation's Allan Luxton said: "What we need now is to get behind this funding and make sure local policies are in place to make sure all the barriers to cycling in Bradford are tackled here. We have shown through our partnership with Bradford Community Environment Project that we can work together to get extra resources for cycling, now we should be considering a push for some of this new money to come to us."