The University of Birmingham’s crowdfunding campaign to create a bike scheme on its Edgbaston campus has received a big boost from Associated Architects.
Associated Architects work closely with the institution on a variety of major projects, and today have pledged £5,000 towards the #bikesforbrum project as part of a national competition run by Santander.
Director Warren Jukes said: “As a framework consultant working across the campus on the new capital programme our team will have the opportunity to benefit from the use of the new cycle network when visiting site.
“Having recently completed the new library we are delivering the Green Heart landscape project which would incorporate some of the new cycle stations. This is our opportunity to help increase health and well-being for our staff and the University’s staff and students. We hope others will get behind the University to secure the bikesforbrum!”
The University is competing with four other organisations to compete for the scheme which will transform the way students and staff travel across campus and between buildings. Only the top two institutions will win.
The University needs to raise at least £47,000 through crowdfunding in order to win an investment of £100,000 from Santander to get the scheme up and running. This would establish eight bike stations at locations across campus and 50 bikes from the outset.
University Sustainable Travel Co-ordinator Peter Edwards said: “This is a really exciting project for us and we are totally committed to surpassing our target. A cycle hire scheme like this could really transform how people get around our fantastic campus - improving health and wellbeing and reducing emissions in the process. Huge thanks to Associated Architects for this well-timed boost. The competition between the universities taking part is pretty close.”
You can access the crowdfunding campaign online and make a contribution. A contribution as little as £5 can get you a reward to mark your involvement with the programme. The campaign is live now and completes on 8th December 2017.
You can follow the campaign on social media using the hashtag #bikesforbrum.
For further information, please contact Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Manager Sally Xerri-Brooks on (+44)121 414 3984.
The competition was open to 69 of the 81 UK University partners as it excluded those already covered by an existing cycle scheme. The universities which took part were: Northumbria, Newcastle, Lancaster, Leicester, Essex, Swansea, Leeds, Chester, Bath Spa, Portsmouth, East Anglia, Cardiff Metropolitan, St. Andrews, Cranfield, Royal Holloway, Nottingham, York, Kent, Brunel University London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Plymouth, and Surrey.
The two winning universities will be announced in December 2017 with the scheme set to be launched in Spring 2018.
Santander Cycles now covers 100 square kilometres of London, making it the second largest cycle hire scheme in Europe. Since launching in July 2010, more than 63 million journeys have been made, with last year the most successful year in the scheme’s history, with over 10.3 million hires. Among the improvements made to the popular scheme last year were the introduction of Blaze Laserlights to all 11,500 bikes, a new Santander Cycles Business Accounts scheme, and more bikes and docking stations, including at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and more recently Brixton.
Santander, through its Santander Universities division, maintains partnerships with close to 1,200 academic institutions in 20 countries. Santander Universities was introduced in the UK in 2007 and the bank is already collaborating with 83 British Universities and Higher Education Institutions, with agreements focused on promoting international exchange, entrepreneurial activities and the mobility of students and researchers within the network.