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Slough bus station (CC licensed by Ed Webster via Flickr)£150,000 Slough cycle hub yet to be used – three months after opening
Situated next to the railway station and opposite the bus station, Slough’s cycle hub has space for 80 bikes, 24-hour CCTV coverage, free WiFi, lockers, toilets and changing facilities. It cost £150,000 to build and yet three months after opening, it still hasn’t had one single user.
UKIP councillor Diana Coad told the Slough Express that Slough Borough Council (SBC) had ‘squandered’ money on the project. “They have cut services to Age Concern who can no longer afford to run at Langley Pavillion and they shut down the Langley Pavillion, yet they still utterly squander tax payers' money on rubbish schemes like this.”
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Lynsey Brookfield, from SBC’s transport team, confirmed that no-one has used the facility or signed up to be a member since it opened in July, but said she felt that pricing and awareness were the issues and that both could be addressed.
“The meeting room and workshop at the hub have proved very popular and we’ve had a lot of enquiries from cyclists. However, we think the cost of membership is putting some people off, while others aren’t yet aware the hub is there.
“So we are currently looking for ways to lower the cost of membership and improve signage in the area. We are also hoping to run some special offers in the coming months and expand the services offered on-site.”
At present, a membership card costs £10 per year, which allows unlimited access 24-hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. However, in addition to the joining fee, users must pay £2 each time they use the facility or fees of £35 a month or £385 a year for unlimited access.
Deputy leader of the Slough Conservative Group, Dexter Smith, described the hub as a ‘great disappointment’ and said more effort was needed to follow up on the project. “It makes the whole effort appear like a tick in the box exercise rather than a serious effort to shift commuter travel habits, which is necessary. What is needed here is follow-through; that's something this council sometimes lacks."
Brookfield did however say that the council’s bike hire scheme – which now has seven cycle docking stations across the town – has attracted more than 370 active members.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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26 comments
I wondered what that building was. It looks like a hand held cordless hoover!
I didn't know this was there and I live in Sluff!
2 quid a day, 385 a year, I do not see much of a reasonable discount. Imagine riding to the hub taking a train into London for work. Imagine 210 working days that would be 420 on a day by day base.
For these commuters there should be a combined ticket train&hub cutting the hub price by say 50%.
For me paying a quid for a save parking space without having to carry 2.5 kgs of locks is fine. Throwing in a shower, wireless I would be ok with two.
Dr. Ko
So would I, but the facilities are not where the demand is. They could have built 10 of these around London station terminals and they would still be over subscribed.
I'm going to be argumentative again; there is already a network of places to cycle on called roads...
Absolutely. Just some fool allowed cars on them!
Annual membership fee for this facility is £385 + £10 membership card.
I see...
It has meetings rooms too doesn't it? The Wi-Fi is going to be needed, if not now then soon for the proliferation of connected apps and micro apps.
Wifi is cheap.
As a Slough cyclist, I can say with certainty that this isn't what we asked for, or the hire scheme. We asked for joined up, safe, segregated cycle lanes. Once those are established, then there will be some point in having these extras
It's not a ridiculous idea, as the bike parking at the station is highly insecure, but cycle access to the train station area is pretty challenging, to say the least. It's not very well advertised either
But there is rumour of plans to join up some of the bike lanes, so you can actually get somewhere. In the meantime, it's yet another Slough council fiasco, to go with our soon to be demolished theatre. Good facilities run by really good, keen people, strangled by atrocious management
Just how easy is it to get membership to use this facility?
It took me two months of persistent letter writing to get access to the secure parking at Feltham station. I was initially refused because I did not have a season ticket purchased through SWTrains.
Not meaning to question the finer points of the project, but why is free wifi included? How long are people actually meant to be spending in this facility? Are they going to be locking their bikes, getting changed and simultaneously checking road.cc news at the same time?
Practically every building seems to have free wifi; can't understand it, myself.
Like most cycle facilities, this is probably designed by motorists who think they know what cyclists want.
Strava; its got to be to upload from your bike computer to Strava. They have done their research after all
£35 a month?!? The one in Manchester city centre is £10 a month or £20 if you want access to showers as well. You can also join for a year for £100. That seems pretty reasonable and the hub does seem quite well used. Can't see how one in Slough would be worth so much more!
Why on earth does no one ever bother to listen to what cyclists actually want from infrastructure projects?
I guess it is far easier politically for the council to waste £150,000 on a useless hub than to re-engineer roads to make them safer for cycling, lest they be accused of some "war" on the motorist. We see this kind of rubbish in Leeds where the £29 million cycle city ambition scheme is badly designed because the council won't let it impede motor traffic in any way - the safety of cyclists is always a second priority to the convenience of motorists.
Also, it's a UKIP councillor complaining so she can be safely ignored as talking total bollocks anyway.
Just the kind of facilities that cyclists would ask for, hilarious. It's like making a frying pan and hoping sausages will magically appear.
Make it free and see what the uptake is, then gradually increase fees to find the pricing point.
It looks like a really nice facility and if it's only £150k to build, can I have one in my borough please :)....free of course
A £2-per-visit usage charge is a bit steep, since (I'm assuming) there is plenty of adequate *free* cycle parking in the vicinity of the railway station.
£400-a-year is a decent amount of money, to give some context I'd guess that's around your average gym membership in Slough. I can't see that the service that they're offering warrants anywhere near that kind of fee.
If they built railway terminuses without bothering to build railway lines, nobody would be surprised it fell flat, but building a hub without any useful bikeways is seen as somehow different.
Hits the nail on the head, I think.
Why do councils build such random things?
What's needed are safer and more pleasant routes. And not short sections that don't join up or go anywhere useful either.
Parking facilities can come later, once you've actually given people somewhere to cycle.
80 bikes? I just wish they would have implemented Japanese underground bike parking. 10m down they fit 150 bikes and takes little to no space on the ground...
Yes but in Japan, land is in extremely short supply and as a consequence is stratospherically expensive - it's therefore cheaper to dig down and build a complex system like that whereas in Slough, it's much cheaper and easier to just put up a building.
imagine the outcry if there'd been a complex and expensive digging/engineering project and no-one used it - at least this is "only" £150,000. In an average week most councils can manage to waste that amount of money by Tuesday afternoon!
My experience of several cycling projects, is that £150k won't even get you to consultation.
Fancy that....