A South Tyneside Young People’s bike repair drop-in service launch activities to support youngsters

Young People from Tyneside Outdoors’ (TO) Temple Raiders will be helping other young people get on their bikes during Cycle to School Week which take places next week with support from the Platten Family Fund at the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.

Following the group’s work over the winter with PHD researcher Eileen Lauster and support from Voluntary Organisations Network North East’s (VONNE) Act Green Together - Seed-Corn Funding project, Tyneside Outdoors is expanding its work to keep more young people in South Tyneside active on their bikes.

Next week will see TO’s bike mechanics and young volunteers helping out with 5 free Dr Bike sessions for young people to support them to ‘Cycle to School’.

Sessions will run from 4pm to 6pm and are open to young people aged 11 - 18 years old.

TO’s new project a twice-weekly Young People’s Bike Repair Drop-in will run at TO’s new community resource, TO bike. situated at The Nook, in South Shields.

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The Drop-in will offer young people the opportunity to carry out their own repairs for free with the support and guidance of TO’s Bike Mechanics and Youth Workers.

Young volunteers from TO’s Temple Raiders, whose group have been providing free repairs to young people in Temple Park will be on hand to help with the running of next week’s sessions.

The research work with young people, as part of The Astra Project, looked at their experiences of cycling in and around Tyneside. A major factor in their continued enjoyment of cycling was access to affordable repairs.

Young people in need of a bike repair will be able to carry out repairs to their own bikes with support from expert bike mechanics and with access to all of the TO bike. equipment.

Ryan Dobson, a young volunteer from Temple Raiders bike group said: “I’ve been learning bike repairs since I first started with Temple Raiders and have gained a Velotech Silver qualification so can help other young people with their bike repairs and it’s great to be able to do this indoors, instead of outdoors in Temple Park with torches.”

Paul McLelland, Shop Manager at TO bike. added: “It’s great to be able to support young people to learn to fix their own bikes, it will save them money and build on their skills either as future cyclists or maybe as bike mechanics themselves.”

The project’s success in gaining the funding follows work by TO to test out new project ideas as part of VONNE’s Act Green Together seed fund project, which allocated funding provided by the National Lottery Community Fund to local groups and organisations to try out new ‘green’ projects and to provide early evidence for potential funders.

The Platten Family Fund at the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, was one such funder who was keen to help young people learn STEM subjects outside of formal education.

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Ross Wilson, Senior Philanthropy Advisor at the Community Foundation said “We knew that Tyneside Outdoors was working with a well-established group of young people in South Shields, and it was clear that this project would be a natural extension of the current provision.

"Particularly since Covid, we’ve seen the benefit of regular, structured, and safe youth provision, and that this project will enable young people to spend time outdoors and learn how to maintain and repair their bikes is especially encouraging.”

Nathaniel Spain, Going Green Together Project Coordinator added: “We’re thrilled to see how Tyneside Outdoors’ work has developed in the areas of wellbeing, active travel, building skills and reducing waste."

TO’s Young People’s Bike Repair Drop-in is open to all young people aged 11 - 18 years old and will operate twice-weekly (Monday and Thursday provisionally).