£100,000 funding offered to the club or group who can get bums on bikes

• Friday, 15 May 2009
• Keith Bingham
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Fancy getting your hands on £100,000? The cash is yours if your club or organisation can come up with a bright idea on how to get more people cycling.

The cycle industry has put 100 grand into Bike Hub’s “New Ideas Fund”, the levy scheme funded by the cycling industry to finance new cycling projects.

Cycling clubs, campaign groups, bike shops, indeed any group, with a big, bright new idea to get people cycling, can apply for the money. The funding may be split between five projects; each receiving £20,000, or the whole lot may be given to one scheme.

The idea is that applicants match the funding, or partly match it. The Bike Hub scheme has helped launch some brilliant ideas since it was formed in 2004, such as Bike It, the Sustrans schools cycle training programme that has got thousands of children cycling.

The Bike It project began with four cycling officers. Now it has a team of 43, across England and Wales. Phillip Darnton, chair of the Bike Hubb Committee, says projects can be local or regional and ideally have the potential to be expanded nationally in the future, just like Bike It.

Darnton comments:
“Bike It is a tried and tested method for getting many more children and young people to take up cycling for their school journey. Bike It offers a model for future work across the country to reduce school travel congestion. I hope that we receive lots of innovative ideas for new cycling projects so that we can duplicate the level of Bike It’s success in getting more people cycling, whatever their age.”

Prospective applicants are invited to visit http://www.bikeforall.net/content/new_ideas_fund.php where they can submit an application.