Exmouth: ExeCargo bike delivery project seeks support to secure much-needed funding

Exmouth's environment-friendly bike delivery project could secure thousands of pounds in funding if local people support a crowdfunding initiative.

The ExeCargo project was started up as a three-month pilot in March this year by Transition Exmouth, as a way for local businesses, groups and individuals to make their collections and deliveries without a car or van. Read more here.

The electric bike service was used by three independent businesses; the clothing firmTotal Tee, the health shop Mother Earth and The Pet Stall at the indoor market, as well as carrying out food collections for Exmouth Food Bank. Mother Earth said: "ExeCargo ExeCargo is brilliant ! We don't do enough deliveries to justify buying our own e-cargo bike , so being able to use this a couple of times a week is perfect."

Transition Exmouth say they saved 'a whopping 90,000 kg of carbon dioxide emissions' by making the deliveries by e-bike instead of petrol or diesel vehicles.

The pilot scheme was hailed as a great success, with long-term potential, but the e-bike – which had been hired from Exmouth Cycles, has now been returned. Transition Exmouth are fundraising to buy their own fleet of e-bikes, and they have an immediate target of £1,000 to be raised by October 8 – if this happens, Devon County Council will match that amount. They could also get up to £5,000 in match funding from Back The Future over the next few months, and a 40 per cent grant for e-Cargo bikes from the Energy Saving Trust.

Transition Exmouth are now appealing for people to pledge money via their Crowdfunder page to help attract the funding.

Their plan for the project is for bookings to be managed initially by Exmouth Cycles, and then integrated into Ordaloca, a website and app which promotes Near Commerce and enables customers to order and 'shop locally like it's 2022'. Ordaloca is being developed by Propeller Exmouth , a not-for-profit co-working space with a community of start-ups, creatives and engineers.

Manager Jim Hill told Transition Exmouth: "Our ambition is to provide a powerful utility for the future of running local businesses, and a part of that means creating the space for local e-delivery companies to use the platform too. So we'd love to get involved and help you out however we can with ExeCargo."