A brand new bike shelter!

Two sayings: ‘worth the wait’ and ‘worth it's weight in gold’. Well after this project, I have created a new saying: ‘worth the weight in.... double platinum’!

In 2022 St Augustine's PS were successfully awarded a Connecting Schools Double Platinum Grant to install a new bike shelter, as the existing temporary bike storage solution was no longer servicing the growing demand.

Due to the limited amount of space on our school grounds, we had exciting plans to set a precedent of utilising existing public car parking spaces on the schools verge to house a secure bike shelter. But alas, that idea was unfortunately not possible due to a number of infrastructure code violations within the City of Belmont.

We needed to go back to the drawing board and decide on a new location. Eventually we decided to locate the new shelter into a small pocket of unused behind the school hall. It would be a tight squeeze, but it was the best solution for a number of reasons. Security, safety and access being the top reasons.

As with all building projects in the current market, we came across a few delays during the process. During that time the number of students riding to school each day more than doubled! The growing demand had already outstripped our upcoming solution. With that in mind, we decided that when the new shelter opened, we'd make the existing parking area available to the class who are the current holders of the green foot trophy for the highest percentage of active travellers. Read more about this here: Green Foot Lining Up for a Turn

Today was the first day the shelter was open for business!! We let our community know yesterday through a short video posted to the school facebook and instagram pages and as a result the new racks started to fill up quickly early this morning.

It is a challenge to get a good photo of the finished project due to the tight space, but here are some before after shots:

A big THANK YOU goes to Carol-Ann from the YourMove team for all of your efforts in keeping the ball rolling to get this over the line for us!

This project has come at the perfect moment. Term 4 started with so many bikes parked on our verandah, that we struggled to find clear pathway into the school hall. It was also encroaching on the available playspace and limited shaded area for restful playtime activities. Having the additional safe, secure and accessible space means that the growing number of students riding their bikes to school no longer a cause for concern (even though it was 'a good problem to have')!

Additionally, we are delighted to have been awarded a 2023/24 Connecting Schools package which includes a placemaking initiative. We are looking forward to hosting a fantastic grand opening celebration for our new shelter! Plans are underway! Stay tuned!