Cycle Lockers Prove Popular

In a bid to get staff and students out of their cars and onto their bikes, Loughborough College has installed state-of-the-art cycle lockers across the site and staff have been quick to snap them up.
Twenty of the innovative lockers were placed at The Gables halls of residence along with five cycle hoops, access to foot pumps and puncture repair kits on site, all under the watchful eye of new CCTV cameras.
The innovative scheme has been undertaken in partnership with Leicestershire County Council’s Environment and Transport Department and Post-16 Transport Partnership and Leicester City Council’s Post-16 Transport Partnership.
College funding has seen a further 24 placed on the main campus and already they have been fully booked by staff members.
Sport Tutor, Renata Van Dam was the first to sign up following the theft of her bike from the old rails earlier this year.
She said: “I had a rather nice hybrid bike which I rode to college. I locked it up in the rails presuming it would alright under the watchful eye of the security cameras.
“My partner (Patrick) who also works here, came into college and locked his bike next to mine.
“After an hour Patrick returned to find my bike missing, no lock, no cable. But the insurance company wouldn’t cover the bike because it was not ‘out of sight’.”
The incident meant Ms. Van Dam no longer wished to cycle to work but the planned cycle lockers changed her mind.
She said: “When I heard that the college were getting bike boxes I put my name down first, knowing they would be popular, and knowing I would get another bike eventually that could be kept ‘out of sight’.
“The bike locker is great, not only does it keep your bike out of sight but it also keeps it dry as well as a good place to store any wet kit.”
Ms. Van Dam is one of a number of staff at the College who rent the lockers as part of this pioneering scheme.