On yer bike!

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008. 

Read about how an innovative cycle centre in the town of Middlesborough not only got people on their bikes to work but also spawned new projects and increased wider awareness of sustainability and environmental issues. 

On yer bike

a story from the 'Breaking the Mould' story circle

Middlesborough was designated as an environment city in 1992 and has a separate organization doing a lot of environmental work with the local community. But the particular innovation I want to talk about is a cycle center. In its early years Middlesborough environment city was struggling a bit. Well for a few years it had guaranteed funding but after that it was a struggle to keep it going. But it managed to keep going, but there was one person in particular we employed as a local agenda-21 officer who sought to get the local people involved in environmental issues would be to encourage cycling.

It was a good thing to do – Middlesborough is an ideal place to cycle in terms of terrain. With a lot of determination he encouraged people in the council to take the idea seriously: having in the town cycle center a place where people could bring their bike in, leave it securely but also have access to a locker and a shower. So that they could get changed, leave things there and then walk a hundred yards or whatever to the office and pick the bike up in the evenings.

It was quite a bit of effort to get this imposed but it was set up and one of the first cycle center centers in the country; I guess Bristol probably has got one too. And it works really well. And gradually the membership of the center has built up as more and more people are using it. So not only is it encouraging people to cycle but it is a way of getting people to think about the broader environmental and sustainability issues as well.

That is really what I wanted to say: it was innovative and it needed dedication to push it through.

But that success I think is influencing other projects in the environment city: for example encouraging people to compost their food waste. And they started a project of collecting waste material, composting it and then letting people have it back. And that has now been taken up across the whole town by the council.

So, the idea that cycle center works has meant that other initiatives have a chance of working as well.

Return to the listing of 20 mini innovation stories

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