The council will donate up to 50 unused bikes to small local businesses in a move that follows the donation of bicycles to hotels earlier this year.
Reading Borough Council (RBC) donated 26 ReadyBike bicycles to hotels across Reading earlier this year, for use by guests and visitors to the town.
The bicycles have been in storage since 2019, when Hourbike Limited pulled out of its contract with RBC to run the scheme due to financial struggles.
READ MORE: Bike hire company to withdraw from scheme
Councillor Tony Page, lead member for Environment, Planning and Transport at RBC, said: “We have an arrangement with a number of town centre hotels. We were approached by one or two town centre businesses for a similar arrangement.
“It felt quite appropriate to extend it. I felt it was appropriate to offer it to help town centre businesses get back on their feet.
“That is the basis of the initiative. It makes good use of bikes that would otherwise be in storage.
“It builds on the arrangement we have now had in place for a number of months with town centre hotels which appears to be working well.”
The council has kept 150 bikes in storage since the ReadyBike bike hire scheme ended two years ago due to Hourbike’s struggles to cover the costs of operating the scheme.
Of these, 26 have now been donated to four hotels so far in Reading: The Roseate Reading, Ibis Reading Centre, Premier Suites Reading and Novotel Reading Centre.
The council had offered up to 50 to hotels in the town, the same offer it is now making to small local businesses.
RBC says the donation of 26 bikes “was greatly appreciated by the hotel owners”.
READ MORE: Bikes being donated to hotels from council
The council’s executive director of Economic Growth & Neighbourhood Services and Cllr Page approved the plans last Friday (September 17) to offer up to 50 bikes to small local businesses.
As for plans for a new bike rental operator to set up in the town, Cllr Page said the council has talking to a range of operators, but they are all asking for “some sort of up-front subsidy”.
Cllr Page said that is not something the council can afford to offer, and it would need Government funding for an up-front subsidy for a bike scheme to be able to do so but this has not yet been offered by Westminster.
He added: “All of the operators require it, otherwise we would have seen a new scheme in Reading.”
Cllr Page said the council would be keen for their to be electric bikes on offer as part of a new scheme “but they are more expensive” and he said appropriate security measures would need to be found.
ReadyBikes were used in Reading from 2014 until April 2019, with 109,468 rents and 19,229 subscriptions to the scheme in total.
Bike technology has changed significantly since the introduction of ReadyBikes and the bicycles would no longer be of interest to any bike hire operator.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here