At the end of 2023, a joint application was made between the Stromness Community Garden, Greener Orkney, and Incredible Edible Stromness, for an electric cargo bike, which would ‘join up’ some of the links between these groups. Earlier this year we heard that we had been successful in this application, and took delivery of the Tern ‘e cargo bike’ during the summer. It has come complete with waterproof ‘back box’ for transporting loads of up to 40 kg, and it is designed to cope with cobbled streets and steep hills… ideal for Stromness!
We had some initial ideas of how the bike would be useful to each project, including picking up food from the Co-Op for the Community Fridge, taking cardboard waste to use as a compost resource at the Community Garden, and transporting plants and garden tools, both for use at the Community Garden and around the new planters through the town.
We have done about 50 food runs with Co-Op food collections, and some early cardboard collection too. A rough estimate of the amount of food collected with the bike is somewhere around 200kg so far. Thank you to everyone at the Community Fridge who has supported this new venture!
The bike will spend the winter in the dry, at the Men’s Shed in Stromness, and will be back in action next Spring.
Other ideas for bike use include picking up waste from Greener Orkney beach bruck days, and possible refill deliveries around town, and it’ll be great to extend the bike use further. If you have other ideas, please let us know.
The electric cargo bike was funded by Cycling UK, as part of the Rural Connections UCI Legacy Fund.