Northumberland

Community cargo bikes

Steven Morrison Cairns

Innovation Associate

Steven Morrison Cairns

Innovation Associate

Hexham and Berwick

E-cargo bikes for the community

Two community E-cargo bikes are playing an active role in community activities in the market towns of Berwick and Hexham, Northumberland. Building upon the success of two cargo bikes provided by Northumberland County Council, in the summer of 2024, NICRE, Food and Drink North East, and Cycling 4 Everyone worked together with local stakeholders to provide flexible, accessible cargo bike training for community members and explore a variety of uses of the bikes.

NO LOGO Cargo Bike Sticker

Findings

The project identified lots of ways that E-cargo bikes can out-perform vans and cars for logistics in rural places:

  • Outreach activities where public engagement is useful - people notice an E-cargo bike!
  • Deliveries where the most efficient route to a 'drop point' is through a field, park, or an undriveable track.
  • Day-to-day activities that would otherwise involve staff members using their own cars and searching for parking spaces - bikes can park where cars usually cannot.
  • Deliveries where the unloading point is roadside or would involve a vehicle mounting a pavement to avoid blocking the road.
Berwick Trial

NICRE Innovation Associate, Steven Morrison Cairns, explains:

We spent several months engaging with stakeholders in Hexham and Berwick to understand the local transport and logistics needs, and to identify opportunities for the E-cargo bikes. We were also approached by several community members actively involved in a range of projects who expressed an interest in trialling E-cargo bikes.

Successes

  • Stakeholder engagement: We worked together to develop a growing audience for the cargo bike with wider participation anticipated. 
  • Community engagement: We brought a cargo bike to local markets and events, and supported training so it could be used by organisations like Hexham Library.
  • Training: We provided lots of training early in the project, which felt like a quick win, and then became a slow burn.
Find out more about Hexham Library's cargo bike trial

E-cargo bike uses

So far, cargo bikes have been used in Hexham and Berwick for:

  • Deliveries
  • Day-to-day activities and moving stock by community organisations and groups
  • Services and support, such as food parcel deliveries for the foodbank in Berwick
  • Recycling service and household waste management
  • Christmas tree deliveries
  • Every day journeys, such as shopping, trips to the vet, the school run.

Key challenges

  • E-cargo bike model: Cargo bikes with a front box can be challenging to learn to ride
  • Training times and training duration: This evolved over time and we adapted to community needs
  • Communications and marketing: We would have liked to do more marketing, but due to limited budget we mostly used LinkedIn and word of mouth to tell people about cargo bike availability and training
  • Lack of equipment: It would have been great to have a booking system and a storage space for more community cargo bikes
  • Maintenance knowledge: We relied on third parties to maintain the bike.

Stakeholder engagement

Each town has key members that have been crucial to the success and ongoing, proactive, community engagement with their respective E-cargo bikes. We are grateful to Stephen Scott, Steve Douglas and Colin Elliot for their support in sharing how the bike is used in Berwick. In Hexham, we worked closely with Peter Samson (Hexham Farmers Market manager), David Dixon & Zaria Greenhill (the Tynedale Bicycle Mayor team), Nick Morphet (Active Travel Tynedale) and Kathryn Agar (Hexham Library).

Future plans

We have secured funding to continue trialling uses of E-cargo bikes and ways to increase public adoption. For example, we will focus on:

  • Identifying potential social and health care uses
  • A trial for book deliveries and everyday use by Northumberland Libraries
  • Training through Northumberland Sport Centres
  • Exploring click and collect opportunities.

Steven said:

“E-cargo bikes are the multifunctional tools of the bicycle world, and we are keen to see them used for more everyday journeys.”

Related pages

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