Newspaper boys and girls in Forfar are making their early morning deliveries in safety thanks to help from the community council and local business owners.
The young people have received 25 bike lights so they can be seen while out and about on the job during the dark, midwinter mornings.
Forfar community council chair Linda Clark said she had been concerned to see – or not see – delivery staff doing their rounds with either no or poor lighting.
Noticing the delivery staff on her early morning runs, she worried it would only be a matter of time until one of the young people had an accident.
So she mobilised help from the wider community in the Angus town.
Insufficient lights
She said: “As community council chair, I noticed during my early morning runs in semi-darkness that some of the newspaper deliverers had either insufficient lights or indeed no lights.
“My colleagues and I set about rectifying this. Earlier this month, local bike shop owner Chris Smeaton handed over the lights which we had bought from his shop.”
She said the group spoke to the town newsagents to see who was most in need of help.
“This is something that Forfar Community Council members are very pleased to be involved in as it is a community safety issue.
“I’ll be pleased to see the newspaper deliverers with improved lighting when I’m out running or cycling,” she added.
Keeping the bikes roadworthy
Newsagent Adrian White, from M&S Richardson, is also paying to service his delivery team’s bicycles to ensure they are “properly road worthy on these dark mornings.”
He said: “It was good to get the new lights on. I’m also putting my newspaper persons’ bikes in for a service to ensure they are properly roadworthy.”
He said he had 24 boys and girls making deliveries between 7 and 7.30am in the morning, but not all of them on bicycles.
His youngest staff are 13 but some of them aren’t so young, he added.
“We have one pensioner who helps us. He says it gets him up in the morning so he may as well get paid for it.”
Chris Smeaton, owner of the Outdoor Store, said it was great to set up the young people with the upgraded lights.
“It’s good to know they’ll be seen when they are out and about,” he added.
