CWLEP Support C&W Innovation Programme Stratford Upon Avon Case Study: Pashley Holdings Ltd.

Pashley Cycles, founded in 1926, is the last of the UK historic bike builders still manufacturing in the UK, from its factory in Stratford-upon-Avon. It serves 3 main segments, being consumer bicycles and tricycles, last mile cargo bikes and trikes, and bike share bikes for the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) market, including providing the bikes for the London and Edinburgh bike schemes.

The business was awarded an Investment grant of £10k in May 2019 from Coventry & Warwickshire Business Support Programme, which is part funded by European Development Regional Fund (ERDF), to help fund an investment in wheel building equipment. This allowed Pashley to build its own wheels in house, and also build wheels for key customers.

With the onset of Coronavirus, Pashley halted bike production in order to protect its staff. However, with bicycle shops being deemed as essential services, and the shared bike schemes in London being essential to allow Key Worker mobility, Pashley continued to build spare wheels and to provide bike spares.

As the public looked to cycling as an alternative to public transport, and also as the perfect daily exercise on quiet welcoming roads, demand for consumer cycles started increasing. As a result, Pashley slowly and safely restarted manufacturing towards the end of April. Having their own wheel and bike manufacturing on site, when the majority of businesses were importing bikes from overseas, allowed Pashley to significantly grow its consumer bike business as a result, and help lots of cyclists get on the road in the warm May weather.

Commented Neil Davis, Managing Director at Pashley, “the support from the Investment grant enabled us to become self sufficient in wheel building and create some extra jobs in doing so. This then proved crucial in being able to support Key Worker transport in London during the lockdown, and also to help meet the big increase in demand for consumer bikes that has also arisen.”

As a business, Pashley finds itself now more than ever at the heart of three major market; consumer cycles supporting personal mobility and wellbeing, last mile cargo bikes supporting congestion and pollution reduction in urban areas, and bike share bikes for Mobility as a Service, providing safe, shared, effective low carbon transport in urban areas.

CWLEP and Coventry City Council is further supporting this massively socially positive growth with £100k grant from Coventry & Warwickshire Innovation Programme which is part funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Further details of this project will be featured in a further article later this year.