Some room-silencing deadpan answers to a series of questions on cycling from UKIP’s local election candidate in East Chesterton, Cambridgeshire. 78-year-old Peter Burkinshaw is taking no prisoners:

Q: What experience do you have of cycling in the Cambridgeshire area?

A: None.

Q: Would you agree that creating very high-quality cycling routes to encourage new people to cycle offers by far the best cost-benefit ratio for transport improvements that facilitate growth of the City and surrounding areas?

A: You are asking for benefits paid for by other road users. I would prefer more car parks.

Q: Do you support our view that traffic policing, of all groups of road users (cyclists, drivers, etc), should become a greater police priority?

A: Cyclists are by far the most undisciplined road users. On several occasions, I have had to stop or dodge cyclists riding through red lights when crossing at pedestrian crossings. More police attention to cyclists would be useful. 

Q: Do you and your party support a new London-style bike plan for Cambridgeshire?

A: No. This proposal amounts to theft from the people who pay to use roads and the benefit given to those who don’t.

Q: Do you support our proposal for ‘The Chisholm Trail’, a cycling and walking linear park that would run roughly along the railway?

A: Only if cyclists pay for it.

Q: Do you support the provision of a cycle bridge over the River Cam and related cycleways alongside or near the railway bridge?

A: Again, only if you don’t expect everybody else to pay for it.

Q: What would you do to ensure the developer fixes these [cycling signs] before the County Council adopts this, to avoid taxpayers paying to deal with these problems in future years?

A: Nothing.

Q: Do you support our view that legal cycling should remain permitted, that the signs should read ‘Cyclists give way to pedestrians’ and that conflict would be reduced by removing barriers to increase the amount of space here?

A: I don’t use Green Dragon bridge, so am not able to make an informed comment. However, I am constantly subjected to verbal abuse from cyclist riding of the footbridge at Jesus Lock when I ask them to stop ignoring the please dismount signs.

Q: Do you have any other general cycling-related comments or points?

A: Why are there cycle tracks on Hill’s road on both the road and footpath? Road space is required for motorised vehicles who pay for it. It shouldn’t be wasted on people who don’t. Just for your information, I walk to most places in Cambridge, but you should bear in mind that if everybody cycled, there would be no roads to ride on.

Some good points, spectacularly well made…