The £1.55 million investment in the park's infrastructure has been made possible following a successful application by Manchester City Council to the Places 2 Ride Fund.
Wythenshawe Park has received an award offer of £500,000 from the Places to Ride programme (which is being delivered through a partnership of British Cycling, MCR Active, Sport England and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). This funding has been matched by the City Council through the Parks Development Programme to develop the chosen area of the park into a Cycle Hub and improve the surrounding facilities.
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The hub will be a family-friendly space based around the existing athletics track area of the park. It will be a safe space for both new and seasoned riders to develop their skills and confidence in a traffic free environment.
Wythenshawe Cycling Hub will be free to access, and the public will be able to book cycling lessons with trained instructors for beginners, intermediate and advanced cyclists.
The new facilities will create opportunities for existing on-site partnerships such as Simply Cycling and Nacro to extend their offer to the community.
In tandem with this, the investment aims to motivate more Mancunians to learn how to cycle, to choose cycling as their mode of transport and, encourage people to take advantage of the increasing number of cycle routes in and around the city.
Work is well underway in the park- the hub began development in late 2021, after a public consultation found that over 1,800 people supported the scheme, the facility is on track to open in Summer 2022.
The investment is the latest phase of a wider ambition to improve the sports facilities in the park, it builds on the investment previously made to improve the tennis facilities and, will complement the work officers are exploring to secure investment to improve sports pitches, changing and the athletics track. This will ensure that the sports zone of the park is completely modernised over the next five years.
