Surrey hospitals replace car park spaces with innovative cycle hubs

Two Surrey hospitals – the St Helier Hospital in Carshalton and Epsom General Hospital – have replaced some of their car park spaces with bike hubs constructed out of shipping containers. The innovative facilities, designed by Active Commuting, provide bike parking, showers, lockers and changing rooms.

Active Commuting’s first facility was set up at GE Healthcare Ltd in August. The cyclist and runner hubs at the two hospitals are due to go live this week.

The hub at the St Helier Hospital will provide showers and lockers to over 100 staff, and adds another 28 secure bike parking spaces to the site.

The Epsom General Hospital hub occupies five car parking spaces and provides 40 secure bike spaces, with separate male and female showers and changing rooms above the bike park.

This is similar to the GE Healthcare hub which also takes up five parking spaces but caters to over 50 people.

Andrew Rechten, co-founder of Active Commuting, said: “The GE pod has been used every day since it was up and running in August, and the feedback has been really positive. They also helped us with some design modifications, which we put into practice with the two new sites. All together across the three hubs, over 200 people a day will be using them, leaving their cars at home.”

The firm says it also has interest from several large UK employers and is looking to export the idea to the USA and Ireland.