Bikes and equipment are being offered to children in South Lanarkshire to enable them to participate in Bikeability Scotland at school.
At the Road Safety Forum meeting on Tuesday, the programme was outlined along with help that is available for pupils.
Bikeability Scotland is multi-level cycling training which is designed to give children the skills and confidence to cycle safely on the roads, and is available to pupils in P5-7.
A small number of bikes and helmets, previously funded by Cycling Scotland, is available to schools.
This allows bikes on a loan basis to address individual cases of pupil inclusion, with the aim to give opportunities to kids who may have been excluded due to not owning a suitable bike.
Bikes are available from Montrose House in Hamilton or Happy n Healthy Community Development Trust in Rutherglen. They must be booked in advance to ensure availability and to arrange collection or delivery.
Chair of the Road Safety Forum, Julia Marrs (Clydesdale North), said: “Super report and I am delighted to hear that we have new members of staff able to support the bike bank scheme.
"I understand it is 46 bikes that we now have available for loan with associated helmets across South Lanarkshire and that covers four localities, so I am very pleased to hear more about that.”
The levels of Bikeability Scotland form part of the Scottish Government’s Cycle Action Plan for Scotland, Cycling Scotland has the responsibility for the administration and development of the Bikeability programme nationally.
There are two levels of the programme, level one covers basic cycling skills and is taught in the playground or in other traffic free environments and usually delivered to children in P5.
Level two is the core training of the programme which takes place on quieter risk assessed single lane roads with simple junctions, and this is delivered to children in primary six and seven.
All primary schools were invited to participate within Bikeability Scotland level one and level two training during the academic term 2021/2022.
School staff and volunteers are able to support the programme by taking part in a one-day Bikeability Scotland Instructor training course which is delivered by two approved and certified traffic and transportation officers.
A total of four instructor training courses were delivered in the Autumn 2021 term with 20 candidates being successfully certified as Bikeability Scotland instructors.
Four further training courses are scheduled to take place next month.
Lasr November, a new Bikeability Co-ordinator was appointed, funded by Cycling Scotland’s Bikeability Support Plus grant, to help promote the programme throughout the council area and to provide extra support to schools.
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