We have teamed up with Lime and Loud Mobility to launch a new £100,000 ‘Share the Joy’ fund to increase cycling within underrepresented groups and deliver equitable access to its benefits.
The Share the Joy fund will support organisations and community groups who are improving London’s Accessibility and Inclusion, Health and Wellbeing and Skills and Connectivity, through cycling. Funded by Lime, this community cycling fund is managed by London Cycling Campaign with support from Loud Mobility.
We are also hosting a public Share the Joy festival this Saturday 13 July where people can come and meet some of the current recipients of the first round of the fund, meet the team from Lime and London Cycling Campaign and build connections across the cycling community in London. The event is free to attend and all are welcome.
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The first cohort of fund recipients are each receiving £2500 to support things like core costs, project costs and new equipment. The first recipients of the funding include Cycle Sisters, London Bike Kitchen, Wheels for Wellbeing, and Londra Bisiklet Külübü , a Turkish and Kurdish focused cycling club that provides cycle training sessions and bike maintenance sessions to community members.
The fund is designed to support organisations and community groups who are working to increase equitable access to the benefits of cycling. Many of the grants are urgently needed and will be immediately put to use.
For example, London Bike Kitchen will use the funding to help reopen their DIY workshop: an affordable space where Londoners of all backgrounds can learn skills to fix their bikes. The Bike Project will use the funding to distribute more refurbished bikes to refugees and people seeking asylum on their waiting list. C86ERZ will use the funding to provide much needed storage space to help distribute items by bike to serve the basic needs of people experiencing homelessness across London.
You can read more examples of organisations who received funds in the first cohort in the Share the Joy coffee table book.
This is just the start of a very exciting project. The next round of fund grants will take place in September 2024, with three more before the end of 2025. Find out more below.
This didn’t happen overnight. People used to think cycling in London wasn’t safe or for people like them. There is still lots more to do, but it is important to celebrate the hard work and campaigning that has delivered this progress, not least by LCC members and supporters.
From the London Mayor, Transport for London and local boroughs to shared e-bike providers, community groups and everyday cyclists – we all need to work together to continue transforming London into a world-class cycling city.
We generally focus on how we cycle. Do we have access to safe cycling infrastructure? Is there somewhere suitable and convenient for us to park or store our bike? How can we identify and fix dangerous junctions?
These will always be important questions and we still have progress to make here. But as we seek to get even more people cycling we also need to keep asking who isn’t cycling and why? To continue London’s cycling transformation, it is important that we reach new audiences to share the benefits of cycling with.
This is why we’ve teamed up with Lime to launch this new fund.
I’m proud that London is leading the way in cycling in the UK, with record numbers of cycle trips. But we need to ensure as many people as possible – regardless of age, income, background, experience or ability – feel cycling in London is a choice available to them. This is where the fund can help, by providing support to those working closely with their communities to overcome specific barriers.
We look forward to seeing you at the Share the Joy festival this weekend and hearing from you for future applications for the Share the Joy fund.
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