Nine trail groups across Scotland have benefitted from over five thousand pounds from the Scottish Trail Fund’s grant awards.
The Scottish Trail Project has awarded its first round of grants totaling around £5,500 to nine groups covering trail associations, local groups and community organisations.
Thanks to the kind donations from the Scottish mountain bike community, the trustees of the Scottish Cycling Foundation (SCF)* with the support of the staff team in Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland (DMBinS) and Scottish Cycling have now awarded circa £5500 to trail associations, local groups and communities across Scotland following a heavily oversubscribed application process.
The awards have been made for a variety of items such as insurance payments, tools, first aid kits, PPE, and funded placements on the DIRTT Volunteer Trail Dig Leader course training.
Fiona Cockburn, Trustee of the Scottish Cycling Foundation said; ‘The SCF is the official charity of Scottish Cycling and supports the future of cycle sport in Scotland. We are delighted to now be able to make the first awards from the Scottish Trail Fund. This is precisely why we set up a charitable foundation to be able to provide different sources of income leading to improvements for cyclists across Scotland. Thank you to all the groups that took the time to apply and for their work and passion in improving trails across the country.”
The Scottish Trail Fund and the grant making process has been administered and supported by the staff of DMBinS and Scottish Cycling who made recommendations to the trustees of the Scottish Cycling Foundation (OSCR NO. SC051130) for approval.
Graeme McLean, Head of DMBinS added; ‘It has been incredibly difficult to choose the successful award recipients, as this first round of awards was so oversubscribed. The high number of applicants proves that the demand is there from groups who are keen to support and improve their trail networks but need financial support to do so.’
‘We know the impact that trails associations and groups are making to the trails across Scotland and we believe that the Scottish Trail Fund will play a large part in helping groups set up, gain landowner approval, and help build the practical resources that will build and maintain a sustainable trail network across Scotland.
We are so grateful to the riders who already donate monthly to the Scottish Trail fund, but we hope that sharing the positivity that comes with these awards we can encourage more riders to get involved and donate. If one thousand riders signed up to donate the price of a coffee a month, it would build this fund now and into the future and the benefits across the Scottish trail network would be incredible.’
Pete Scullion, Bike Trossachs said; ‘We were super pleased to hear that our application to the Scottish Trail Fund had been successful. This award will allow us to buy new tools and will mean that two of our volunteers will be trained up as DIRTT Volunteer Trail Dig Leaders which will allow us to run more dig sessions and encourage more riders to join in with our monthly dig days as we work towards our goal of adopting and maintaining the trails in Aberfoyle.’
The full list of the trails associations/groups, and their geographic region, who have received funding from the Scottish Trail Fund in 2024 are as follows:
- Ae Bike Association, Dumfries & Galloway
- Barr Bikes, Ayrshire
- Bike Trossachs, Aberfoyle and Trossachs
- Castlemilk Youth Complex, Glasgow
- Galloway Hillbillies Bike Club, Dumfries & Galloway
- Highland Wildcat Ltd Golspie, North Highland
- Moray MTB Club, Moray
- North Argyll Trail Association (under Adventure Oban), Argyll & Bute
- Trail Wild MTB, Edinburgh
If you can, please consider donating a coffee a month. If we had 1000 riders donate a month we could have fully funded all 17 applicants to the fund, what an impact that would have had on our trails.
