Always on
This project successfully funded on 14th April 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
A New Home for Leeds Bike Mill
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
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Aim
Help Leeds Bike Mill set up our new community bike workshop! We’re raising £15,000 to create a new welcoming, warm and accessible workshop.
Who are we, and what is our project about?
Leeds Bike Mill is moving! We’re raising £15,000 to move to our new space on Meanwood Road so that we can empower more people with bike maintenance skills, repair and recycle more bikes, and create a thriving active travel hub for our community.
We are a community bike recycling centre and bike maintenance training provider. For over a decade we’ve been refurbishing donated and discarded bikes, teaching people how to look after them, and lowering barriers to cycling for the people of Leeds.
In the last 12 years we have:
- Diverted 3645 bikes from landfill
- Refurbished 1800 bikes
- Given away 1094 bikes
- Taught 1600 people on our courses
- Engaged over 750 people at our Dr Bike events
- Supported over 1000 volunteer hours
We are also a Community Active Travel Hub, supported by West Yorkshire Combined Authority, offering free help and advice on how to make more journeys by cycling, walking and wheeling to people in Leeds and the surrounding areas.
Why move?
We currently operate from our first floor workshop, where we've carried many, many bikes up and down stairs! We’re proud of what we have accomplished from here, but we are unable to renew our lease, so we need somewhere with more long-term security. We’re happy to have found a new, ground floor (!) workshop to move to, allowing us to grow and plan for the long-term.
Our current workshop is just one multi-purpose room, but in our new space we will create a dedicated community learning space, with a separate shop area, social space, office and repair workshop. This means we will be able to:
- Increase our volunteer and employment opportunities
- Increase the number and type of courses we run, at any time of day
- Increase our shop opening hours
- Offer servicing and repairs to all customers who need it
- Create a more accessible, welcoming active travel hub where people can drop in, learn, share and connect
Why are we crowdfunding?
As a non-profit, we have kept our operating costs low over the past 12 years in order to make our services as affordable as possible, whilst at the same time saving for the moment that we’re ready to move.
We have started to set up the bare essentials in our new space. But with your help, we will be able to take this move much further! We want to expand our workshop infrastructure, improve the standard and comfort of the space and fully equip the new workshop. This crowdfunder is crucial in enabling us to hit the ground running when we move in.
How we’ll spend the money raised
We’ll use your support for:
- Improving the building: Repairing and insulating walls, levelling floors, installing running water and sinks
- Fitting out the space: Installing our toolboards, workbenches, shop fixtures and lots of storage!
- Moving costs: transporting a huge amount of stuff across town, getting some new signage, plus bottomless cups of tea for everyone carrying things down our stairs for the final time!
- Equipment: new bike workstands and tools for our new community workshop plus bike racks for outside.
What do you get in return? Our crowdfunder is purely donation based. We're not offering rewards to contributors, as we want to put 100% of your donation towards making our new space as good as possible! We will create a beautiful contributors wall as a lasting symbol of our gratitude, and so that your names* will be a lasting part of what you helped to create.
*with your consent!
How you can help
We are so excited to have found our new home and want to invite you in to be a part of this new chapter. There are three simple ways to get involved and support our project:
1. Make a donation
Every pledge gets us closer to our goal! The more we raise, the better we can make our new space, the more resilient we will be as an organisation, and the bigger our future impact will be!
2. Spread the word
Share this campaign with friends, family and your wider network. The more people we reach, the more likely we are to succeed. Please tell your cycling buddies, climate-conscious pals and anyone who you think may be in a position to help!
3. Volunteer with us
If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you. Sign up to hear about upcoming volunteer opportunities.
Please note: If you do decide to donate, the tip to Crowdfunder is completely optional (and doesn’t contribute to our cause). You can set it to zero by clicking ‘custom amount’. We pay a transaction fee to the platform so this tip to Crowdfunder is extra.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made