Grease Monkey has been appointed by Hackney Borough Council as a supplier to manufacture, deliver and install 675 Veloboxes over two years; to provide more cycle parking than any other borough in London, with a project value of over £3 million.
During the tender process, the Hackney active travel team visited Grease Monkey, as well as competing tender suppliers, to inspect the quality of their active travel infrastructure solutions, their workings and where applicable the manufacturing of the storage solutions.
The visit was the perfect opportunity to illustrate the following unique points of the Velobox;
We were successful in our tender bid based on the pricing and also the overall quality of the Velobox. We believe that our ethos of ‘no compromise on quality’ correlated with the overall netzero ambitions of Hackney with the knowledge that all our products are sourced locally and responsibly, manufactured in the UK; to the point that we know the names of each person involved in the manufacturing process.
Delivery of the Project in Hackney
To be able to deliver on a project of this magnitude, Grease Monkey identified the need to open a hub in or around London in order to transport our UK manufactured Veloboxes, and subsequently deliver and install to locations in Hackney whilst keeping our own carbon emissions as low as possible. This process has been streamlined to transport as many Veloboxes as possible to our London base via HGV whilst ensuring the quality of the Velobox is protected using safe storage solutions with made to order stillages. The London base has been set up to accommodate a second assembly line to future proof our dual string resilience in order to minimise any potential issues.
The Veloboxes are then delivered and installed at a rate of eight per week by use of our own flatbed van, trailer and HIAB to ensure delivery is as smooth and non-disruptive to local residents as possible.
The first few installations threw up a challenge with granite kerbstones, however this was quickly overcome with the introduction of specialist tools.
Throughout the process from being appointed to the present date, Grease Monkey has been in frequent contact with the client to ensure that their needs have been met and, in places, exceeded. There is an open communication channel between ourselves and the client to ensure the delivery of the project is kept up to date and any issues that are thrown up can be dealt with as soon as they are identified.
We have adopted features to the Velobox to meet their requirements, such as privacy panels, which going forward will be an option for future clients.
An open line of communication has been key, as well as being adaptive, to building the foundations to a good working relationship with the client.
Feedback from the London Borough of Hackney
The roll out is in its early stages, however the client has expressed their delight at the following points;
‘We’re really excited to be entering a long-term partnership with Grease Monkey Cycles, who will help the council double the number of cycle hangers in Hackney over the next 3 years. Our 15 year contract will see six hundred and seventy five new bike hangars installed in Hackney by May 2026, in a huge expansion of secure on-street cycle parking in the borough, helping 4,000 people without space in their homes to store bikes safely on the street, encouraging more people to cycle.
It’s been great to see people’s positive response to the hangars arriving in their area when the Grease Monkey installation crew rolls in. We’re really pleased with the look of the new units and their functionality. Work with Grease Monkey on the installation process has been very smooth and with a new approach we have put things in place to less than half the time from the hangar arriving on street to getting the first users issues slots.’ Hackney Council.