Building Momentum in Eyemouth - Emily and Marc's Update

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Part of Emily's role as the Borders Regional Development Coordinator is to work with local colleges and high schools to improve the MTB skills agenda. This is a real opportunity to increase the options for young people in the Scottish Borders to enter the industry. Have a read about Emily and Marc's recent work in Eyemouth. More to follow!

Friday, 8 December 2023

A few weeks back, Marc and Emily were invited to Eyemouth High School to meet with Nicolas Schnider, an S4 pupil, and keen mountain biker, looking to develop the cycling infrastructure offerings in Eyemouth. The meeting brought together local stakeholders in and around Eyemouth, and discussed the need to increase cycling infrastructure, look at what facilities would be of most value to the community and discover how we could support these objectives.

Nicolas has to travel to the Tweed Valley in order to access the trails, but with this being a round trip of over 3hrs by car and no suitable public transport links, he is looking to get help to develop trails closer to home for the local community.

As well as sharing Nicolas’ goal to increase cycling infrastructure, DMBinS saw this as a great opportunity to work with the school which ties in with our current work on developing an SQA course to enhance the career paths into the mountain bike industry.

Following the initial meeting Marc and Emily completed a site visit to identify suitable sites for a trail and together with Nicolas, developed a questionnaire to gauge interest and support from students and members of the community.

This week Marc and Emily returned to Eyemouth, to attend the High School Christmas Showcase, which provided an opportunity to engage with students, community members, local businesses and social enterprises. They shared the progress to far, which well received and gained support from the local community.

It was brilliant to see Counsellor James Anderson at the event who shares our passion for developing the cycling infrastructure for the Eyemouth community and is working with us to gain land manager approval on a suitable site for the trail.

We’re really excited to be working with Nicolas, the school and the wider community in Eyemouth and are looking forward to sharing updates with this project.

Emily with Nicolas and Counsellor James Anderson

By supporting the continued growth and development of mountain biking we will help deliver greater impacts through developing the skills agenda, support innovation in small businesses and invest in local communities to sustainably develop the economic contribution that mountain biking makes across the Borders.

This project is funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information.