Students at five universities are currently competing to try and secure a Santander Cycles hire scheme for the places where they study, with two institutions – and potentially, the wider community – set to benefit should the entrants successfully crowdfund the money to operate it.
Under the Santander Cycles University Challenge competition, launched in January this year, students from 25 universities were provided with consultancy and coaching from Nextbike and Crowdfunder to develop their own cycle hire schemes.
Five universities made the shortlist, and earlier this month each of them launched campaigns on Crowdfunder in which they are aiming to raise the money necessary to run their proposed cycle hire scheme for a year.
To actually secure the scheme – and the £100,000 up-front costs which will be met by Santander Cycles – they will have to beat their Crowdfunder target, with the two doing so by the greatest percentage emerging as winners.
The four-week funding campaign which is open until 8 December, is roughly at its midway point and only one group of students, from Swansea University, are close to halfway to meeting their target, with 46 per cent raised of the £53,178 they are seeking.
Next is the University of Birmingham, where students have raised 36 per cent of their target, followed by the University of Portsmouth at 33 per cent, Brunel University London at 24 per cent and finally the University of Surrey with 9 per cent.
You can access all of the project pages on Crowdfunder via the competition’s page on the crowdfunding platform.
Assuming two of the institutions meet their targets, the schemes will be rolled out in spring next year with 50 bikes each and the possibility to expand them in the future.
There's one that's always lurking outside our house at night.
When these were designed in to the new development near us the excuse was 'well if we didn't it would be impossible to get a rubbish truck in to...
I should get onto the Guinness Book of Records people then, as they have the world record slowest heart rate for a healthy person down as 26bpm,...
Add Scotland to that list. You won't even find a dashcam reporting portal in Scotland either so you can forget that also.
And years ago Laura Trott, Daniel King, Joanne Rowsell, as theyvwere after Olympic gold, got lots of being and Jaguars, when Jags were very...
I made a complaint within an hour of the story being published. I have zero faith that they will amend anything....
TBF I think that's before she saw the light and got on her bike. Not so great if her views have been informed by Mr. Briggs though.
That's a great price. Just bear in mind Import duty and handling charges will be applied pre delivery.
Yep, I appreciate your problem. I wouldn't buy a bike without at least sitting on the same frame configuration on a trainer in the shop, something...
One less thing to clutter up your jersey pockets no? Though difficult to retrieve in a hurry...