Nottingham City Council has awarded over £100,000 to the Sustainable Travel Collective (STC) as part of the Department of Transport’s Access Fund. The aim is to give local residents close to the main city cycling corridors the encouragement, knowledge, training and opportunity to start cycling and use their bikes more often.
The project will provide a rolling programme of cycle-based activities until 2020 targeted at communities in areas of Nottingham City with low levels of physical activity, through a network of pop-up Cycle Centres at established community locations, offering drop-in sessions for regular local support services and activities.
It is anticipated that four pop-up Cycle Centres will operate on a regular monthly basis, one in each of Nottingham’s cycle commuter corridors, in existing community venues on those corridors. Provisional locations have been identified but the exact venues are still subject to agreement.
The main objective of the Community Cycling programme is to get more people doing more cycling more often and for cycling to become a convenient and attractive option for everyday travel choices. This will be achieved by providing adults and families with services and activities to provide them with the skills and confidence to cycle safely, including access to safe and affordable bikes, delivered through a fun, creative and interactive programme that engages, inspires and encourages participation through a co-ordinated programme for Spring/Summer, Autumn/Winter, school holidays activities plus pre-arranged group programmes. All activities will be provided free of charge to recipients and will be linked into other council programmes such as Parklives, Get Out Get Active, Nottingham Girls Can campaign, British Cycling ride programme etc. They include:
- Cycle training for beginners and improvers through 1:1 and group training
- Short led rides and walks
- Journey Buddying to help with routes planning and build confidence
- Dr Bike drop-in cycle maintenance services
- Fun days offering try-outs of a range of different pedal powered cycles
- Skills classes including cycle maintenance and Build A Bike courses using recycled bikes
- Loan bikes so owning a bike won’t be necessary to take part.
Councillor Sally Longford. Portfolio holder for Neighbourhood Services and Local Transport said: “Nottingham City Council has made significant improvement to the City’s cycling infrastructure in recent years. This exciting project will help to promote more transport choice and inspire more communities to get moving.”
The charity, which runs the highly successful RideWise project, is delighted with the announcement.Gary Smerdon-White, Chief Executive, said: “The community cycle centre programme is something that we’re thrilled to be involved in – we’re looking forward to developing a wide-reaching package of free support that will help communities to get onto their bikes, safely use the new corridors, improve their health and wellbeing, get better access to work and learning opportunities and have a cheap way of travelling as part of their daily regime.
Nottingham is a great place to travel by bicycle and want to help our communities to explore their area safely and confidently by bike. We have over 15 years of experience in running cycling programmes and we’re excited to be involved in this project.”
The Sustainable Travel Collective is a Nottingham based charity which supports the environment by helping people to move to greener forms of transport. It delivers support through its RideWise, Big Wheel and TravelRight projects.
If you’d like more information about the Community Cycle Centres, then email customerservices@ridewise.org.uk