Site for community bike hub 'stormed' by vandals

A site where a new community bike hub is being built to help reduce antisocial behaviour has been vandalised.

Police are investigating after the Believe Achieve CIC project in Stoneclough, Bolton, was targeted on Monday night.

The bike hub was being built after reports of young people in the area using illegal motorised bikes - and the group aims to give youngsters access to bicycles while teaching road safety and maintenance skills.

Tunde Olasupo, project founder, says the site was "stormed" by people who vandalised a surrounding fence and forcibly opened a container that will house the hub. They added there had been opposition to the project, with concerns about further antisocial behaviour.

There were also concerns about its location and environmental impact, Olasupo said.

"Of course, I'm upset, and when you see something that you've worked hard for deliberately damaged, you're human, it hurts," he told BBC Radio Manchester.

He said the site had been targeted before.

"The objective is to balance access and community benefit with protecting and enhancing the natural environment, and that's one of the things that we're trying to make very clear to people."

Believe Achieve CIC was set up in memory of Olasupo's son, Kingsley, who died in 2019, with the aim of giving young people opportunities he never got to experience.

Despite the damage, Olasupo said he would not give up on the project.

"I've learnt something from Kingsley, that everything that happens… there is always a good thing at the end of the road."