Hey, I’m Lewis Hemingway, co-founder of Roadblock Sound System. We are a group of young people who provide bike powered, visually striking sound systems for festivals, events, parties, protests…
We use cycle power and batteries to provide music, lights and entertainment wherever people need it across Leeds. Best of all, our power is off-grid and renewable, it is free energy that is independent of mains electricity.
Our mission is to inspire and unite people everywhere to see the value and ease of building machines that can resolve challenges facing their communities.
This is our first ever crowdfunder! As a young organisation, we are aiming to raise £12,000 for a project in Armley, Leeds, to help local people design and build their own community asset - an off-grid machine. We would genuinely love your support so that we can inspire and bring together even more people through sustainable power.
Please donate today! Or keep reading to find out more...
A short history of Roadblock
At Roadblock we are all about:
- connecting people through music
- supporting causes we love
- showing that music and the arts can be experienced without relying on fossil fuels
Roadblock is more than just a climate solution. It creates experiences, joy, understanding of science, and empowers people who may not otherwise have access to an outdoor sound system. Roadblock was born in 2019 to provide green power and sound for organisers of youth climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests, so they could get their messages heard. Since then, our three wheeled, pedal powered sound system has been to dozens of places around our home city.
As an organisation we support communities who are in need of free, off-grid power, whether that is community events or political activism.
Over the last five years we have grown as a group - we now have a core team of eight people and an extended network of around 70. We run community cohesion events, build new machines, make art, and run workshops for community groups and schools.
Our original machine (shown above) was built in 2019 by myself (Lewis Hemingway) with my friends Peter and Alex. It is a tricycle that can be pedalled to move it to events. The two seats for pedalling also power a battery, which powers the sound system. This is a really fun way to bring power into spaces - through human energy. And it removes the need for a generator, which is costly and pollutes our air.
Since its creation, Roadblock has provided the sound system for Leeds Light Night, COP26 activities in Leeds, a summer festival at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, the global climate strike in Leeds in September 2019, and supported organisations such as Trans Leeds and the Racial Justice Network.
So far Roadblock has enabled more than 30 events in Leeds to operate off-grid - meaning, without needing to plug into a mains power socket. This has provided great environmental benefits, helped people understand alternative power, and enabled people to use their public spaces in creative, meaningful ways.
The project in Armley
Our experiences with the bike have shown us that a machine like this opens up conversations with people you wouldn’t always have the opportunity to engage with. It’s a simple machine that you can take apart with your own hands, and it prompts curiosity about mechanics and the STEM subjects.
We want to work with the Armley community, and other communities across the city, which have the highest levels of deprivation. Armley is one of six priority wards for Leeds City Council. The community faces challenges, but has fantastic community spirit and a lot of local assets. In this project we will work with a local partner, New Wortley Community Association, to bring people together to plan, design and build a new piece of community infrastructure. We will also partner with Leeds City Council’s Localities Team who are keen to support us on this project.
New Wortley Community Association is a community-led group with strong links to their community, a stable building with storage, and a park they are firmly connected to (Oak Road Recreation Ground, which is colloquially known as Jailey Fields). Some of the key local issues are:
- Lack of green spaces and places to come together
- Lack of safety and places that feel safe
- Antisocial behaviour
So how will the project work?
The project will build and strengthen collaborative links between groups in Armley to share ideas and expertise, and to work hands on together to build a new community asset. The project will take place over three months, from November 2024 to January 2025.
Getting this project up and running quickly enables us to work alongside Leeds City Council, New Wortley Community Association and New Wortley Residents Association who have worked collaboratively with the community to secure funding to develop a playground and nature trail. These improvements to Jailey Fields park started in September and are expected to finish in October.
This local park is a key part of the New Wortley community, and the improvements to it are a culmination of five years’ work. By doing our project now, Roadblock can enhance the ongoing work and support the community’s ambition to ‘Make Jailey Fields A Park’.
Part one - November
The first part of the project focuses on engaging with people and groups in the local area, through New Wortley Community Association. We’ll meet and talk with schools, youth groups, community organisations and adult groups. This will help us understand the challenges the community face, their ideas to address these challenges, and how we can work collaboratively on a solution.
Part two - December and January
We will then bring together individuals and groups we’ve engaged with to design and build a machine based on the needs and solutions they identified. This will be community led, and supported by a team of engineers and staff from Roadblock and New Wortley Community Association. We have no pre-conditions about what the machine would be, only that it uses off-grid power. The design and build of the machine will benefit from the support of the University of Leeds’ Markerspace in Edward Boyle Library, which has kindly been offered.
Project legacy
The project will finish with the creation of a new piece of community infrastructure which will be owned by New Wortley Community Centre. They will manage the ongoing use of the machine, which will be there for members of the local community to use and benefit from.
What will you spend the money on?
We aim to raise a total of £12,000 for this project. We plan to spend:
- £2,000 on materials, workshops and events.
- £9,000 on staff time - a Project Manager (£2,000), two Engagement Workers (£3,000), two Support Staff (£1,500) and an Off-Grid Engineer (£2,500).
- £1,000 on administrative costs and Crowdfunder platform fees.
Roadblock CIC will be putting in an additional £2,000 of our existing funds, to put towards the cost of materials.
The Roadblock team
Roadblock Community Interest Company (CIC) was officially registered in February 2024, but we’ve been going as a group since 2019. We are always super adaptive to the people we work with, and pride ourselves on our attention to inclusivity, accessibility, mental health, love and kindness.
The project will be managed by me, Lewis Hemingway. I have been managing the Roadblock team for three years, overseeing a team of 37 volunteers. I have the support of two business development workers who guide and mentor me, as well as a great network of friends and colleagues across Leeds.
Two of our team - myself and Harry Duggan - were highly commended at the Municipal Journal’s awards (the BAFTAs for local government) for our Voice and Influence work in 2024. This was for a youth engagement project we completed for Kirklees Council.
We have a large team of engineers from various backgrounds, some of whom have teaching experience in secondary and higher education. Our Lead Engineer, Woody, is a nationally-leading bike power engineer who regularly trains groups on how to build bike powered units.
Roadblock have recently carried out two projects on behalf of Leeds City Council to help them engage with communities in Hyde Park and Woodhouse to find out how they wanted to use their local public space. Both communities had parks which were underused. Roadblock helped the Council understand the barriers and what they can change to make the parks better.
We are also grateful to have strong links with local organisations who guide and support us, including Hyde Park Source, Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, University of Leeds, Rainbow Junktion, Climate Action Leeds and Voluntary Action Leeds.
Future ambitions
We registered Roadblock as a community interest company so that we can take our work to the next level. Our aim is to do this project in Armley, develop a case study about it, and then pull national money across to Leeds to do similar projects in nine more neighbourhoods. That will include the other five priority wards in Leeds that are experiencing the highest levels of deprivation.
Our ambition is to make Leeds into an off-grid city, where we can power ourselves with green, renewable power. We have a strong desire to help communities solve some of their challenges around community cohesion, loneliness, poverty, unemployment and more, by building machines that can be their pride and joy.
Longer term we hope to set up a UK festival for off-grid machine builders, to inspire people everywhere to create machines that can unite communities whilst solving local challenges.
Thank you for your support!
It means the world to us that our friends, family and community support us and believe in what we do! So thank you for reading this far. Please donate and share this crowdfunder with your loved ones so that we can hit our target and bring our magical Roadblock energy to as many people as possible.
Q&A
Q. What if you beat your target of raising £12,000?
A. If we surpass our crowdfunder target we will be over the moon! Once we’ve completed the project in Armley we aim to work in a further nine neighbourhoods around Leeds, to build more machines for more communities to enjoy. Any additional funds will help us with these future projects.
Q. What if the Armley project doesn’t go to plan?
A. In the unlikely event that the project in Armley can’t be completed, we will spend any money raised from this crowdfunder on our future projects building machines and providing sound for communities around Leeds.
Q. Are you building a sound system that will cause unwanted noise for local people?
A. Roadblock have been running sound systems for many years, and we have never had any complaints or issues around noise. By supporting the New Wortley community to build a machine democratically, to meet their needs, we are confident that it will become a valuable asset for that community. The aim of this project is not to create a large sound system, but to create something that provides off-grid power, to support families and local people to do a variety of fun activities.
Q. Do the community in New Wortley actually want to develop Jailey Fields?
A. Extensive community engagement has been conducted about Jailey Fields, through a partnership of Leeds City Council’s Communities Team, Active Leeds, Parks, New Wortley Community Association and New Wortley Residents Association. This has revealed that the community wants Jailey Fields to be developed, to improve existing infrastructure and add play equipment and a nature trail. This engagement has informed the work already taking place, and our project will enhance this.