The proposal, which is included in the council’s Medium Term Strategy, will provide parking for up to 1,000 bikes in on-street or ‘just off’ street locations in the short term.

The project also aims to identify options for a third major cycle parking area in the city centre like the existing covered parking in Grand Arcade and Park Street, which could give rise to a further project in the future.

Tim Ward, Executive Councillor for Planning and Sustainable Transport said: “It is definitely good news that so many people use a bike to get around the city. For us to cope with growth, we need to prepare for this to be more and more the case.

“One facet is cycle parking, which clearly gets under pressure in common destinations and can at times become chronic in the city centre. Providing for this is not only necessary for the cyclist, but also for the pedestrian who is obstructed by poorly parked bikes.”

“Providing more cycle parking facilities is going to be no easy challenge. Overall space is constrained in lots of places and the installation of racks typically requires negotiation with the county council and sometimes with private landowners. However, by making a significant sum of money available we aim to leverage the contribution of other partners and create a focused effort to find ways to make a really positive difference.”

Council Leader Tim Bick commented: “The money to afford this project is available to us through the government’s New Homes Bonus which directly arises from the extra house building going on in the city. We aim to use it to support the capacity of city to accommodate this growth, but to do so in a way which reinforces the city’s essential character.

The move, outlined in the city council’s Medium Term Strategy document, is designed to reduce slippage in the pipeline of projects which resulted in a backlog of projects of £3.5m at the end of last year.

These projects, part of a £29.7 million programme, fall across a range of areas including play and sporting activities.

Cllr Bick said: “Capital spending brings many positive improvements for communities in the city and they are often keenly awaited, from play areas to litter bins and toilet refurbishment. It also has the positive economic benefit of providing jobs and prosperity, particularly needed at this time. So there is a double reason why we have regarded it as a priority to get this problem fixed and accelerate delivery. If we don’t tackle our backlog, it will simply knock-on into future years.

“The review has established that many schemes had been separately costed each assuming the availability of the same in-house expertise. But in aggregate people were counting that same availability several times over and bottlenecks developed. The extra funding we are now making available will enable this to be rectified for current schemes in the pipeline – and we are changing the method of costing for new schemes.”

“So, for those projects in the city council’s own hands, this measure should put us back on track over the next 18 months and it is good news for all those awaiting progress.”