You may have noticed that my blogs have been a little thin on the ground over the last few weeks; I hope you haven't missed me too much!

The simple reason for this is that I've been busy so haven't had much time, however now that the schools are back I'm hoping to get back into a routine and should be able to get back to regular entries!

Many years ago I studied A-level economics, I use the word study as I never actually got around to taking the exam, but that's a long story! This leads me on the fact that I read a very interesting report recently from the London School of Economics entitled The British Cycling Economy.

This was an attempt to chart the full extent of cycling's contribution to the British economy from sales of bikes and equipment to the improved health benefits.

I'm not going to regurgitate, or even plagiarise, the whole report but there were a few interesting points that I thought were worth sharing.

Cycling is worth £2.9bn to the UK economy annually, this surprised me as I had no idea it would be such a large figure. The number of cyclists out there is growing, you can tell that just by witnessing the increase in people on bikes, but I'm still staggered at how high the figure is.

In 2010 there were 3.7 million bikes sold in the UK and 208 million journeys made by bicycle. There are 23,000 people employed in the cycle industry and this generates 100 million pounds in taxes.

As well as the obvious monetary benefits there are some less obvious plusses to cycling. Regular cyclists take one less sick day per year than non-cyclists and this saves the economy 128 million pounds per annum. Whereas inactivity is currently costing us £760m per year.

When you look at these figures it makes it more difficult to understand why people still use their cars as much as they do.

The rising cost of fuel means that motoring is just getting more and more expensive, I've just spent nearly £600 on new tyres for my car, this would easily cover a years cycling in terms of maintenance, clothing, replacement parts etc and still have money left over.

When I add in the cost of insurance, excise duty, maintenance and of course fuel, the cost of having my car is almost enough for me to get rid of it. I'm not planning on getting rid of it just yet, but I do make a conscious effort to use it as little as possible.

Cycling instead of driving, as I have said before, has benefits for everyone. When I'm on my bike instead of in the car, there is less traffic, less pollution; I am fitter and happier so my employer reaps the benefits of me being more productive. The NHS is not burdened by me leading a sedentary lifestyle.

I get to eat more guilt free doughnuts and cakes, I enjoy my journeys by bike in a way that car drivers cannot even being to imagine and I get to where I'm going more quickly!

It is true that it's faster to travel across town by bike and I've become more aware of this recently, as when the cycling restrictions are in place along the promenade I'm forced onto the roads and so sometimes take a more direct route than I would usually choose.

It's been very noticeable that I've been tending to arrive at my destinations much earlier than anticipated!

I think I may have stumbled upon the answer to the current economic situation we are in; more people cycling means more money going in to the economy and that's what we need, let's get on our bikes and pull the country out of recession!

Based on information supplied by David Brown.