The cash, from Durham City’s Freemen, will help meet the running costs of the Northumbrian Blood Bikes regional fleet of a dozen bikes and eight cars which burn up more than £7,500 worth of fuel annually and face a £26,000 insurance bill.
One of the bikers most frequently used team is based just a few hundred yards from the University of Durham Hospital, with its unpaid riders and drivers drawn from surrounding villages.
One member of the driving team is Steven Laws, who lives in the city and became a freeman after completing a craft apprenticeship at the Harrison’s organ factory more than 30 years ago. He went on to work as an instructor at Frankland Prison before joining the support staff at New College.
His own money-raising exploits for the charity over the past six years have included taking part in four annual Benidorm-or-Bust rallies from Dover to the popular Spanish resort with his son Sam.
The near 1,200-mile one-way fun-run in a convoy of old bangers takes up to five days to reach their destination. The event attracts scores of drivers from across the country, each committed to raising funds for their nominated good causes. The Durham father-and-son’s four Iberian adventures, paid for entirely from their own pockets, have alone raised nearly £12,000 for the Blood Bikes.
Over the last decade the Durham-based biking/driving teams completed nearly 5,000 regional out-of-hours runs, including daily deliveries to the air ambulance.
Their region-wide free service operates round-the-clock at weekends and twelve hours between 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. each weekday. They receive no Government funding, rely entirely on charitable and public donations and save the regional health service up to £400,000 annually.
Kirsty Lawrence, a trustee of the bikers’ charity, said: “We don’t charge for the service we provide, not least so the money the NHS saves in transportation costs can be put back into the front-line care of patients. We rarely find out who we have helped but one day we might be the ride of your life.”
The chairman of the freemen’s charitable trust, Eric Bulmer, said: “Once again a group of volunteers, whose work goes unseen and often unacknowledged, provide a vital service for our local community. We are delighted to help give the tangible support they so surely deserve.”
