Fleet initiatives awarded share of £2m e-cargo bike fund

Funding has been awarded to 18 local authorities from the £2 million ‘eCargo Bike Grant Fund’ by the Energy Saving Trust.

Councils across England were invited to bid for up to £200,000 each to purchase e-cargo bikes for use by local businesses or deployment within their own fleets.

Additionally, funding was allocated through the fund’s national scheme offering limited companies and organisations up to 20% grant funding towards e-cargo bikes.

Successful applications to the local authority scheme offer a broad range of initiatives, says the Energy Saving Trust.

Cambridgeshire County Council plans to deploy 30 e-cargo bikes across four initiatives in Cambridge covering first mile deliveries, a residential sharing scheme, a ‘try before you buy’ leasing scheme and a pool of e-cargo bikes.

Devon County Council’s work will encourage the uptake of e-cargo bikes across partner organisations to support sustainable active business travel as an alternative to car and van use.

It says that 13 e-cargo bikes will be used to support Exeter’s ambition for net zero service with two of the total used by the local hospital’s adult and social care teams to help care for the most isolated people in the city.

Tim Anderson, head of transport at Energy Saving Trust, said: “It is exciting to see the strength and breadth of applications supported by the eCargo Bike Grant Fund.

“We received 58 applications and the 18 local authorities who have been successful in securing funding offered compelling cases for e-cargo bikes across a range of activity.”

These projects will purchase a total of 273 e-cargo bikes and nine e-cargo bike trailers. A further 409 e-cargo bikes have been grant-funded direct to 146 organisations through the national element of the programme.

He continued: “E-cargo bikes are an attractive low carbon transport solution that are becoming more widely adopted.

“They offer significant benefits, most impressively fuel cost savings and contributing to improved local air quality which are particularly attractive as we work towards a green recovery following the Covid-19 outbreak.

“With more deliveries to our homes than ever, last mile delivery is an important area for consideration in our journey to reduce transport emissions to net zero by 2050.

“We expect the eCargo Bike Grant Fund to support wider and longer-term uptake of these light vehicles.”

The cash is available to support the purchase of e-cargo bikes operating in England only, the scheme is funded by the Department for Transport and delivered by Energy Saving Trust.

The full list of 18 local authority recipients is detailed in the table below.

The eCargo Bike Grant Fund eligibility criteria and code of practice are available at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/transport/ecargo-bike-grant-fund