Volunteers who launched a project which organises an annual bike jumble sale by collecting and doing up unwanted bikes before selling them in aid of charity are ‘amazed’ by their progress.

Frome Community Bike Project was launched by Emma Parker, 46, and a small band of volunteers 18 months ago, and the venture is going from strength to strength.

When they realised the enormous need in Frome and Somerset for a bike hub, they set up a crowd-funder which raised £30,000, and they haven’t looked back.

Now, boasting their own bike shed, shipping containers for storage and a small army of volunteers, the project hires out e-bikes, fixes and sells secondhand bikes, and runs workshops and holds guided bike rides. 

Emma said: "We've been open since January with our workshop and shipping containers for storing bikes. 

“People can book a bike in for a service, or they can sign up to bike maintenance classes and learn how to do it themselves. Or they can hire a work stand and come and just use our tools and use our space.”

Emma said the team also offers training to help people build confidence on roads and group rides. Emma said: “They help to build social connections but also to get people out in nature and show people the routes that exist already around where we are. 

“As well as all that, we are still taking in bikes just as we did when we were doing the jumble sales. People donate bikes to us. And we get an unbelievable amount of bikes. We've only started counting them since earlier this year, and we're already up to nearly 250 donations. 

“We have a team of volunteers who work on those bikes, to refurbish them and get them back out on the road and then we sell them again

“It’s amazing to see what we’ve been able to do in the one-and-a-half years since we started. It's been a dream in our heads for a few years, and now it actually exists.”

The group takes collective action to support the environment in Frome all year round and are also part of this year's Great Big Green Week. Last year, more than a quarter of a million people took part in the annual event.  Mid-election campaign, people all over the UK are coming out celebrate the great work communities are doing to protect nature and tackle climate change - and they want their MPs to catch up.  

Helen Meech, executive director of The Climate Coalition, said: “Great Big Green Week is an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people to show how important nature and the climate is to them, and to swap ideas on what we can all do to lead greener lives.

“It is also a reminder to politicians campaigning in the lead up to the General Election that public support for action is both massive and mainstream, and that the next Government will be held to account to  do more for climate and generations to come.”