Meet Station South: the cycling café for everyone
Formed in 2017, Station South’s original mission was to save the disused South Levenshulme train station from falling into complete disrepair.
Located directly over the old Fallowfield Loop railway line, which was given a new lease of life as a shared use path in 2001 by Sustrans, the station has been transformed into a dynamic hub for all things cycling. Opened in 2022 and equipped with a community café & kitchen, bike repair workshop and urban garden, Station South now sits proudly within the newly renovated station and offers group rides, workshops, events and a friendly atmosphere for anyone in the community - or further afield - to enjoy.
We caught up with Anna from Station South to chat about their unique location, life in Levenshulme, and cycling in the city…
What’s the significance of your location here in Levenshulme?
We’ve been going for several years now and we managed to get funding to slowly restore the old railway station, and the location speaks for itself - it’s absolutely amazing to have the cycle way on one side and public transport access on the other, plus it’s bang in the centre of Levenshulme. We’re right on the old railway line which is 8km long from start to finish, and you can get up to Ashton all the way down past Fallowfield and up to Chorlton, completely off road. So it’s absolutely brilliant for beginners and families and children. And then hugging the Fallowfield Loop are just so many lovely community projects and it just feels so nice being a part of it now.
What are some of your aims as an organisation?
Our main focus is encouraging people to start cycling, and creating a catalyst. We try to be quite subtle, it’s not like “this is a cycling cafe so you have to be a cyclist to come here” - the idea is to come here, have some nice food and drink and be gently encouraged. We obviously have the bike repair shop attached to the building, so that works hand in hand with the cafe too. It’s not just cycling that happens here either, there’s a plethora of community events and it seems like every other day there’s a different community event happening, and the space lends itself so well to them.
And how does your cycling club work?
Our cycling club incorporates every level of rider and we’ve categorised them within three colours. The yellow part is all about learning to ride, and that could be with adults or children. So beginner or confidence boosting sessions and nice chilled rides on the loop. Blue go a bit further, they up the distance and it’s completely un-paced. And finally pink, where there’s about five different shades of pink which could be track cycling, watt cycling, hill climbing, and a few more chilled variations too - and that’s the cycle club!
How have you found success in engaging people around cycling?
We’ve attempted to host events that have lots of different approaches to cycling. We try to make sure we have stuff for children, things for non-cyclists, activities for really keen cyclists and adapted bikes that can take people out for rides. We want to try and hit all of these different areas and never assume that everyone can cycle. A big part of the work I do is working with local Asian women, where there’s a huge gap in their abilities to cycle. That’s been one of my favourite projects to be honest, and it grows through word of mouth. The women speak to each other in the playground or the Mosque and tell others to come along, and some of them are now trained up to become instructors themselves.
What impact has the café had on the local community?
We’re a not for profit organisation so any extra that comes through the café goes straight into community projects and events. So people who can afford to eat and drink here are effectively giving back to their community as well, so that’s a really nice celebration of redistributed funds. A lot of my work is also about outreaching and I’m not always based here because we identify groups within a couple of miles who we can help with our input and then organise pop up activities where they are too.
How’s it been for you being a part of Station South?
I’ve been here since before it opened in March 2022. But the idea of the project and restoration work was going on for a while before then. I’m a local resident and when I found out this was happening I was just like “oh my goodness”. Before I came here I was doing freelance community arts and community cycling, and this job fuses everything together, so it’s a dream come true for me to be honest.
We don’t really go for mass numbers or mass behaviour change, we try to get to know the people that we work with and get to know people’s stories really well. And then you start calling them your friends and they start turning up with flowers and hugs because they’re so grateful and everything. And the networks all begin to overlap and everyone gets to know each other really, so it’s just unbelievably rewarding.
How do you think about the work you do in relation to climate change?
Climate change is definitely up there for us in terms of promoting the benefits of cycling. Last year for Clean Air Day we did a big campaign with Levy Clean Air and got lots of kids creating signs, and we got them to think about all the environmental benefits of cycling. We promote people’s personal well-being at the forefront of everything we do, but we’re well aware of the broader impact cycling has. We do quite a lot of community bike fixing which prevents bikes from going into landfill, and we have a bike library here so that people can come and use our bikes instead of buying something cheap and disposing of it after a little while.
What advice would you give to people who are looking at getting into cycling?
Come to Station South! But also, Transport for Greater Manchester operate a Greater Manchester wide scheme to teach people how to cycle, which is completely free and the bikes and instructors are included too. So if someone wanted regular learn-to-ride sessions, that’d be a great place to go. I always send people that way, and they cover all ten boroughs of Manchester as well so you can always find sessions that are quite close too.
What’s the ultimate goal for Station South?
Getting more people cycling, more people feeling confident and changing the cycling culture of the city. Even the difference now compared to 15 years ago when I first came here is amazing. We have a small group of volunteers who take our rides out, and the dream is to be able to offer rides every single day of the week, for every single type of person, but that comes with nurturing and training volunteers, and that’s a big expansion goal.
How have you noticed a difference with cycling in Manchester?
I always compare Manchester in quite a nice way to when I first came here and I was at university. I’d ride up Oxford Road and I’d be a laughing stock because there were so few cyclists around. So I compare that to things like the low traffic neighbourhoods around Levenshulme and places like that now. Riding around the city centre is still not ideal, but it’s great to have people like Andy Burnham and Chris Boardman who are really great ambassadors for cycling in the city.
What do you have coming up?
Our garden is a really exciting new project - I don’t know much about gardening really, but our new garden is going to be our main source of getting groups coming through here. It’s our attempt at nurturing green spaces in an otherwise pretty built up residential location, where no-one really has big gardens. We’re welcoming people in to feel like Station South is their own space, and we’re going to have food growing projects and so on here too, which is really exciting.
