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How we're funded

Over the years, the activity of DMBinS has been funded by a number of funding partners including the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Forestry and Land Scotland, Local Authorities, EU, destination management organisations, and others including commercial partnerships for specific projects.

Team DM Bin S group climb Credit Finlay Anderson

'Core' Funding

Since 2009, the activity of DMBinS has been funded by a number of funding partners including Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Forestry and Land Scotland, Local Authorities, EU, destination management organisations, and others. Largely this has been through grant funding although DMBinS has received small amounts of commercial funding for specific projects.

Scottish Government is the main ‘core’ funder of DMBinS along with sportscotland, through the Scottish Cycling investment agreement. This funding covers the Head of DMBinS, a Communications and Business Support Officer, and a small development budget. These two roles form the ‘core’ team with oversight of all budgets, workstreams, and outputs from the other members of the team who are all funded through time-limited, short-term funded projects. This is proven to be a successful model for all concerned.

The bid to Scottish Government is a joint 50/50 bid from Scottish Cycling (for the work of DMBinS) and Edinburgh Napier University, for its innovation project – Mountain Bike Centre of Scotland (MTBCOS).

The Scottish Government is keen to see their element of 'core' funding not be relied upon, and for DMBinS 'core' to become self-sustaining and not rely on funding in perpetuity.

To help achieve this, we envisage that the Scottish Trail Fund and Scottish MTB Health Fund will play their part alongside dynamic and proactive public and charitable funding and commercial strategies.

Will Clarke Aberdeenshire NEAT Credit Finlay Anderson

Aberdeenshire

Our project in Aberdeenshire started to receive funding in Aberdeenshire in 2018 with a combination of EU Leader Funding, matched with funding from Scottish Enterprise.

This funding ended in March 2020 and we were delighted when partners in the North East wanted to the project to continue to develop mountain biking, and also take the lessons from mountain biking and apply them to other adventure activities.

The project, North East Adventure Tourism (NEAT), is now funded by Opportunity North East, Scottish Enterprise, Aberdeenshire Council and receives in-kind support from VisitAberdeenshire.

Ruari watt riding glentress Credit Finlay Anderson

Ruari Watt, DMBinS Highland Development Co-ordinator

Highlands

To deliver long term impact to the region, and to introduce flexibility into the funding strategy, the programme of development and delivery for the Highlands project has been phased over a 3-year period beginning in Feb 2020, with the initial 12-month period funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Cairngorm National Park Authority and Scottish Government.

This enabled us to recruit our mountain bike development co-ordinator (Ruari Watt), through Scottish Cycling, and a tender process was undertaken and Bike Plan Switzerland were contracted to deliver a 'Highland MTB Bike Plan' of the key bike destinations including facilitating community and key stakeholder consultation.

Our work in the Highlands is now funded through Highlands & Islands Enterprise and from the National Lottery Heritage Fund through CNPA’s Cairngorms Capercaillie Project which covers the staffing and associated costs. Any identified project budget needs match funding to support our grant from Highlands & Islands Enterprise.

This enables us to support key projects identified within the Highland MTB Bike Plan, run business innovation events, support the MTB community in the development of trails, and promote the Highlands as an MTB destination.

The HIE funding is from the Highlands and Islands led Northern Innovation Hub (NIH), a project that received £11m from the UK Government and £1.7m ERDF support as part of the Inverness and Highland City Region Deal. The Deal is a joint £315 million initiative supported by both the UK and Scottish governments.

Christine Paul MBL Trail Therapy Glentress Credit Finlay Anderson

Trail Therapy & Mountain Bike Leadership Support

Trail Therapy is currently funded by NatureScot, Trek, Edinburgh Napier University, and Scottish Cycling. It receives in-kind contributions from the Dundee Green Health Partnership and South Lanarkshire Green Health Partnership.

Funding for the continued development and support for mountain bike leadership awards in Scotland is through sportscotland, through their Scottish Cycling investment, and a rebate from British Cycling from registrations onto the scheme and from those who undertake a course.

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