Businesses making a difference
Meet the people behind the London firms adapting their skills to contribute to the coronavirus effort
When the Brompton Bike Hire team was approached by St Barts Hospital for help at the start of the Covid-19 crisis, they couldn’t have predicted the impact their support was going to have on the London hospital’s staff.
What started with a goodwill gesture of lending 25 of its folding Brompton bikes to
NHS key workers uncomfortable with using public transport has now snowballed into something much bigger.
In the months since, the aptly-titled Wheels For Heroes scheme has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to manufacture hundreds of bikes for
NHS key workers to use for free, and has garnered support from sporting and celebrity legends. Though the Brompton team initially thought it’d be lending just 25 of its bikes, which can usually be borrowed for days at a time from docking stations across the country, they were quickly met with intensifying demand.
They realised that in order to meet the needs of the hospital staff keen to cycle to work, they needed to up the ante.
“By the time that it went through social media and people told people, we suddenly found ourselves with 200 bikes from our excess fleet – which is all the bikes that we had – gone, and we had another 250-300 people who’d all registered on our bike hire site saying they would like a bike,” explained Will Butler-Adams, CEO of Brompton Bike Hire and Brompton Bicycle.
“Then we thought there’s clearly demand, we’re in the middle of a crisis – we’ve got to do something.”
They decided to set their goal at producing 1,000 bikes, pledging £100 towards the cost of every model made and hoping to raise the rest on Crowdfunder. Within 18 days, the number hit £320,000, including a joint donation of £100,000 from Cycling England and British Cycling.
“The nice thing about having British Cycling [on board] is that they’re there,” Butler-Adams says. “We will have quarterly meetings to check that those bikes that effectively have been given to us are being used in the right way – and we’re not using them to make profit.”
Just as things looked like they were starting to calm down, Brompton Bike Hire was contacted by Sky Sports: a host of celebrities – including Chris Froome, Mel C and Olly Murs – were going to be
doing a sponsored ‘bike ride’ from home, and the money raised would be supporting the Wheels For Heroes campaign. An impressive £25,000 was raised – and the funds will be used to build a dock in an NHS hospital.
With 800 bikes now out and waiting lists continuing to grow,
Brompton Bike Hire has had to reassess its approach. “We’re putting in place a scheme now as we’re stabilising,”
Butler-Adams explains.
“What we’re saying to members of the NHS is come and take a bike
– take it for a month, it’s free
– but after a month you’ve got to bring it back because you’ve got another 600 people that are waiting to pick up a bike.”
Though what the future holds remains uncertain, Brompton Bike Hire’s CEO has hope for the scheme’s ongoing impact. “These bikes will last more than five years, so the legacy will be quite long,” Butler-Adams says.
“We may find that there are other causes that could use Wheels For Heroes bikes,” he adds.
GREAT Inspirations celebrates the people who have done extraordinary things during the pandemic. Visit greatbritain campaign.com/ inspirations