Shropshire Council’s Wider Economic Recovery Grant has helped to support a sustainability project developed by a Ludlow company during lockdown.

Together with Ludlow 21 Sustainable Transport Group, Islabikes in Ludlow launched a cargo bike delivery trial to lower Ludlow’s carbon footprint and to support small businesses with making local deliveries around the town.

Islabikes have an international reputation for producing a quality product with each bike being designed and prepared locally in Ludlow.

Cargo bikes were a COVID-19 success story with towns and cities all over the UK adopting them for a wide variety of uses, from transporting first responders and providing personal taxis to ‘last mile’ deliveries of goods.

Consequently, setting up a similar service in Ludlow seemed an obvious way to assist their local business community during the pandemic.

Matt Baynham, head of sustainability at Islabikes says the project also aligned perfectly with the company’s business vision and values,

“Sustainability is vitally important to us, but we also wanted to do something to support the town during the pandemic.

We had already set up the project with Ludlow 21 but the grant enabled us to provide a second bike, prepare marketing materials – including a video – and provide equipment for the riders.

We offered free deliveries to local retailers during the trial period, but this grant has relieved some of the additional financial burden and helped us to work out the viability of continuing the project into the future.

We currently have a small team of existing employees riding the cargo-bikes and managing the scheme, but we would hope to create dedicated job roles in the future.”

Mark Barrow, Executive Director,  Place at Shropshire Council comments:

“As a Council we are determined to create the right conditions to make Shropshire a great place to live, work and invest and this project also fulfilled our commitment to sustainability.

We are pleased that this recovery funding has supported so many innovative projects and made a real impact on businesses across Shropshire.

Businesses from all over the county have benefitted and in turn, are benefitting the communities around them.

It is great that we can share these first-hand accounts from real businesses about the positive effect this funding has had.”

You can view the Islabikes video here:   https://www.islabikes.co.uk/pages/cargo