Welwyn Wheelers has won a grant from British Cycling (BC) to upgrade the floodlighting around the Velodrome and Bowl areas at Gosling Sports Park (GSP).
We rely on this lighting for much of the racing season (Friday Evening Track League), and almost all of the evening training sessions which take place year-round for track, road and off-road, for all ages and abilities.
The existing lighting has served us for many years, but it has poor energy efficiency and is becoming obsolete – within a few years we will not be able to source replacement lamps. The new (LED) lighting will reduce running costs and significantly improve carbon-footprint in years to come. Furthermore, our existing lighting will not meet new BC regulations for outdoor racing facilities, which come into effect soon.
Capital upgrades are expensive! The total cost is £85,000: together with GLL, the managing leaseholder of the GSP site, we were awarded a £25,000 grant from BC & Sports England. Welwyn Wheelers CC have committed to fundraise £12,000 towards this upgrade. The remainder will be provided by GLL. We plan for these works to be completed in 2022, so we should very soon see the benefit.
We have set up a JustGiving page: Track Lighting Replacement – JustGiving, which is live and already accepting donations, and allows us to claim Gift-Aid.
We also appeal to other local clubs who hire and use these facilities also to contribute from their club funds – direct bank transfers are also welcome and we will supply account details, with all donations dedicated to this project.
Previously we successfully raised a similar quantity for repairs to the track surface, when several of our youngers members took part in sponsored events. Please consider this again – does not need to be sponsored cycling!
May we say a huge Thank You to Jenny Bone and Francis Gallacher for preparing a very complex grant application, on all of our behalf.
It is great to see the partnership between GLL and club fostering continued investment in the track cycling facilities, which helps us secure the future of cycling at the Gosling site in Welwyn Garden City.