Hillsborough Pump Track

The Hillsborough Pump Track is a new cycling facility in the heart of one of Sheffield's city parks.

This blog post from Dr Gareth Jones takes you through His journey of taking a pipe dream through to reality. 

I am an exercise psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University with a specific interest in children and young people's (CYP) physical and mental health. The mode in which I aim to positively impact this is through encouraging the promotion and adoption of physical activity. It is worth noting that I am a keen cyclist - mountain bike enthusiast, skate park goer and regular road user (mainly for commuting). In all my years of riding skate parks and pump tracks however, one of my observations had been how eclectic the user groups were; all shapes, sizes, ages, genders, and backgrounds, all coming together for a common purpose - to have fun! Being active was a by-product of that fun.

Children and Young People are a research focus of mine as I believe that early intervention is key. The earlier we can support CYP to have positive experiences and build healthy connections/habits with living a physically active life, the better chance we have of impacting population level health. Research demonstrates that behaviours adopted in early life are relatively consistent across the life span... such, if someone enjoys, and is active in their formative years, they are more likely to carry that on in some shape or form as they journey through life... the same can be said the other way round.

We also know that the physical environment in which we live and grow up in can have a strong impact on our health behaviours. If we grow up in an environment that is not conducive to living an active life, then it will be much more difficult to do so. Bringing this back to cycling, I noticed that Sheffield was lacking in high quality urban cycling facilities (e.g. skateparks, pump tracks, bmx tracks), although there are a couple existing facilities to note, such as Onboard skatepark, Bolehills BMX track and for local nostalgic reasons, Dev Green, but Sheffield is a big city and the balance felt off.

These types of facilities offer a different opportunity to get active outside of traditional mainstream sports, where kids can build resilience, self-esteem, friendships and perseverance. I wanted to help change that, with the knowledge that if we could build more high quality, inclusive, outdoor facilities in Sheffield, it would go a long way to supporting the next generation to be able to live active lives and reap the physical and mental health benefits too. In addition, focusing on a facility that promoted cycling skills would also benefit later years, as participating in these types of facilities will improve confidence on two wheels in general, making cycling a more viable option as part of active living later in life.

My vision was, therefore, clear in my head. To develop a programme that brought a new cycling facility to Sheffield to enthuse and enable children and young people to live more physically active lives, helping improve their physical and mental health.

I contacted various companies and charities to see how I could get this idea off the ground. I came across Access Sport, which were a perfect fit with this vision. Their mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people and inclusion groups using sport, with one of their most successful programmes being cycling.

I also reached out to Sheffield City Council (SCC) and other important stakeholders. Specifically, Luke Wilson, Jon Dallow, Paul Sullivan, and Jo Pearce of Sheffield City Council. There were more, but these guys and girls really stoked the fire throughout.

As a group, we collectively created the idea and explored how we could get a programme going, creating a route map from where we were to where we wanted to be; creating a new facility in the city.

I am also a member of the Move More Coordination group, and so gaining the opinions and professional support of the people we needed to bring the concept to fruition, was relatively simple. This is one of the many benefits of Move More Sheffield, as the communication across sectors and organisations is much improved.

Partnering with SCC and Access Sport the concept was born. Hillsborough Park was selected as the park of choice and we began the process of conducting a rigorous community consultation process where we (myself, SCC, Access Sport, British Cycling) discussed various cycling ideas with the public. The community's input was integral in the design of the programme and the finer details. This was a reiterative process over many months, which was a significant reason for the success of the current facility.

The next period of time included securing funds. Access Sport, SCC and British Cycling all contributed to ensure the original vision of a high-quality facility was realised. We then had to go about putting a planning application to SCC together, putting the opportunity out to tender, awarding the contract and getting the build started... all during a global pandemic! I really have to thank SCC and Access Sport here, as they did all the heavy lifting during these process!

Although this project started with my vision (which continues... this is only step one!), this would not have gone anywhere without the shared vision of others within the city. Sheffield is quite fortunate here as it has many like-minded folk, who love the outdoors and know how to get stuff done!

I view this project as a tangible success, partly for myself in what I set out about to achieve, but more of a success of Move More. Without Move More and Sheffield adopting the whole systems approach mentality, I think this would still be a pipe dream in my head. The whole systems approach connects people, aligns visions, and focuses attention. 

Where are we up to now? 

In track was finished and signed off on Wednesday 8th June 2022.

Every evening the track is bustling with life which is great to see. We are now in the process of establishing a thriving community club, the local community can engage with and utilise to develop their cycling skills, as well as connecting with local businesses such as Tony Butterworth Cycles to widen the local community benefit. We are also in early talks of starting this process all over again elsewhere in the city! Super excited and grateful to be able to support Sheffield in such a tangible way! Something we, as researchers, are not always able to do so in such an obvious way.

The Hillsborough Pump Track includes:

A fully tarmacked pump track, including a learn to ride area, an early riders track and a main track.

Floodlights to keep riders going through the winter months

A storage container with bikes and helmets etc. 

Coaching equipment

To follow what is happening at the pump track, please follow @HillsboroughPumpTrack on Facebook or @Hillsboroughbmxclub on Instagram. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings during this blog post, and if you do get the chance to come down to the track, please do! We have bikes you can use if you don't have one! 🙂 

With special thanks to those who made it happen.