The Circle has been awarded a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund to support our work providing mobility aids in Dundee. The Circle Mobility offers free daily hires of equipment such as wheelchairs, mobility scooters and adapted bikes to help people gain and maintain independence and freedom. This funding will be used to support the running costs of the project, including purchasing new equipment for the service.
We took over from the former Shopmobility Dundee in 2023 to prevent the service being lost after the charity announced its closure. Now open 6 days a week in the city centre, the service offers hires of a fleet of walkers, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and bikes to dozens of people every week.
Since relaunching the service as The Circle Mobility, we have hired out mobility aids over 2,000 times. Its membership has almost tripled to over 700 since 2024, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Abubakar Ibrahim, The Circle’s Mobility Operative, says:
“We see new members signing up every single week, and there are always people coming in saying they just learned about us. We can see firsthand how important this service is to people.”
The Circle’s equipment has been used to attend weddings, explore cultural sites like the V&A, and enjoy trips across the country. It is most often used by a pool of regular users that come to the service every week to do their shopping, attend important appointments and meet up with friends.
For some people, mobility equipment can be the only thing that keeps them from being housebound, but the cost of purchasing or even hiring from commercial enterprises can create huge barriers. Mobility scooters, the most frequently used equipment at The Circle Mobility, can cost anywhere from around £500 to over £7,000 to buy in the UK. With disabled people experiencing higher rates of poverty, expenses like this are often out of reach. Services like The Circle Mobility can be a lifeline for people who for any reason can’t otherwise access the aids they need to get around.
Co-CEO of The Circle, Ruth Finnan, says:
“We are absolutely delighted to keep this vital service alive for the city. Grants like this, alongside donations and sponsorship, allow us to keep providing a free service to those who need it most.”
