The Highland Council joins Bike Week celebration of cycling

The Highland Council is supporting Bike Week from June 18 – 26 by promoting ‘everyday cycling for everyone’ and offering events from family cycle runs to “Bike Fix” clinics for commuters. It also hopes that more people will use their bikes during the week when, co-incidentally, work begins on urgent repairs to the A9 Kessock Bridge, which will cause disruption to travel.

Events planned for the week include:

Further details are available on the Council’s cycling web page at: http://www.highland.gov.uk/cycling.htm

Councillor Hamish Wood, The Highland Council Champion for Health and Wellbeing and Chairman of the Highland Cycling Campaign, said: “‘The Bike Week celebration will demonstrate the environmental, financial, health and social benefits of cycling. We hope it will inspire people to give cycling a go, whether for fun, or as a means of getting to work or school. Bike Week also coincides with disruption on the Kessock Bridge as urgent repairs are carried out. This  may well encourage commuters to cycle rather than suffer the delays likely to be experienced by drivers.”

The Highland Council was recently presented with the Cycle Friendly Employer Award by Cycling Scotland and also secured a total of £560,000 with partners Sustrans, HiTrans, the Inverness Common Good Fund and the European Regional Development Fund to improve and promote active travel infrastructure on Highland roads over the next three years.

Provost Jimmy Gray, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Inverness City Committee, who, with his wife Liz is a keen cyclist, said: “The Council is committed to promoting cycling for everyone from staff and pupils to commuters and leisure cyclists.  The development of Active Travel Master Plans for Highland towns helps us prioritise routes for development and securing the funding from the European Regional Development Fund will ensure further improvements to the wealth of cycling routes we already enjoy in Highland.”