Doncaster Council and FCC Environment saddle up with Yorkshire Bike Shack

Doncaster Council and its waste and recycling partner FCC Environment, which operates the Household Waste Recycling Centers (HWRCs) at Armthorpe, Balby, Carcroft, Conisbrough, Hatfield and Rossington will be saddling from Monday 10 October with Yorkshire Bike Shack to help people in the community maintain their own bikes as well as providing access to good quality bikes for reuse that might otherwise have been destined for recycling.

FCC Environment has agreed to donate 8 bikes a week from the stock they receive into the HWRCs, in addition to the bicycles already recycles and reuses at the Refurnish shop located at Sheffield Road, Conisbrough.

The Yorkshire Bike Shack already has a small team in place who train people how to look after their bike but this new addition to the scheme will allow the Shack team to give the individual the bike they have been trained on free of charge. There will also be some recycled bikes for sale at the Shack to help fund the project but it is hoped with the supply of bikes from the HWRCs that this small scale trial can grow.

"Yorkshire Bike Shack CIC are focused on helping people in the community become more healthy both physically and mentally through promoting the use of bicycles. We want to see people and families benefit from being in the great outdoors and replacing some of the journeys made by car in addition to providing low cost servicing and repairs to the local community," said Principal Director Julian Pike.

"We have a number of future plans, one of which will be to work with local businesses to improve the environment and people's health by encouraging workers to cycle to work and exercise more" Julian concluded.

Cllr Mark Houlbrook, Doncaster Councils Portfolio Holder for Sustainability and Waste, added, "This initiative is a fantastic opportunity to recycle bicycles for use by residents and groups. Great for the environment and will help people to become more active and healthier whilst at the same being cost effective with family finances"

After being established in January of 2021 Yorkshire Bike Shack has grown dramatically. With support from Expect Youth, Well Doncaster and Community Wealth Builder the business secured some funding from Doncaster Council which enabled them to establish some 'Learn-to-Fix' sessions to help people in the local community to maintain their own bikes. More recently they have been given substantial funding pots from The National Lottery to work with refugees in the Doncaster area and Sport England to help families in Edlington.

Yorkshire Bike Shack recently started collaborating with Flourish Enterprises to create a permanent workshop in the grounds of Woodfield Park. This permanent workshop means they can extend their services to more disadvantaged people in the community through tuition workshops, repairs, servicing, bike hire and very popular kids holiday activities.

In addition to the work they do at Woodfield Park they also work with The Big Picture School to teach disadvantage children through practical workshops and provide occasional pop-up Dr. Bike clinics at various places around Doncaster which are kindly funded by Cycling UK.

They now regularly give bikes to people in need and refugees through organisations such as Changing Lives, The Conversation Club & Family Hubs. So far they have gifted 42 adult & 12 children's bikes this year.