Bike and fitness tracks at schools

Find information about bike and fitness tracks, including how to pay for the installation.

Level of compliance Main audience Other

Inform

  • Boards
  • Principals and tumuaki
  • Parents, caregivers and whānau

Building a bike or fitness track is a good way for your school to help children stay fit and healthy. Boards can get advice on building a bike or fitness track from programmes such as Bikes in Schools and schools that have already built one. 

Build a bike or fitness track

Bike and fitness tracks are cheap to build and can be used for running and walking as well as biking.

The Bikes in Schools programme offers advice and resources on building bike tracks and promoting cycling safety in schools.

Bikes in Schools – Bike On website(external link)

Funding a track

For a bike track, you can use your 5 Year Agreement (5YA) funding to pay for up to half of the installation costs.

5 Year Agreement (5YA) funding

It's a priority 3 project and you must plan for it in your 10 Year Property Plan (10YPP).

Other sources

  • You can use board funding and surplus operational funding for the rest of the costs.
  • Talk to Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and your local district health board about whether they can provide funding towards your track.

A fitness track that can't be cycled on, for example an obstacle course, is a priority 4 project. You can use:

  • 5YA funding to pay the total cost of installing this track but only after completing all higher-priority work
  • board funding at any time to pay the total cost, as long as you meet the requirements for using board funding.

Find out more information about funding priorities on our 10 Year Property Plan webpage.

10 Year Property Plan 

Pay to maintain your track

You can use your property maintenance grant (PMG) funding to maintain the track if it was built with Ministry (5YA) funding. If built with board or community funding you must use board funding to maintain it.

Track layout

A track is a circuit usually made from limestone, asphalt or concrete. It usually follows the outer edge of the school’s playing field.

The Bikes in Schools programme recommends a track should be:

  • 2 metres wide
  • 75 to 100 millimetres deep
  • between 250 and 700 metres or more in length, depending on the size of the school
  • curved (no straight lines) to prevent children going too fast.

Advice from other schools

When designing a track, you can seek advice from schools that have already built one. Some of these schools are:

  • St Mary’s School, Hastings
  • Maraenui Bilingual School, Napier
  • Peterhead School, Hastings
  • Riverslea School, Hastings
  • Nga Paharakeke Kōhanga Reo, Hastings (early childhood centre)
  • Richmond School, Napier
  • Ngā Iwi School, Auckland
  • Wellsford Primary School, Auckland
  • Flaxmere Primary School, Hastings
  • Apanui School, Whakatane
  • Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Wairoa, Wairoa (years 1–13)
  • East Tamaki School, Auckland
  • Onepoto Primary School, Auckland
  • James Street School, Whakatane
  • Bridge Pa School, Hastings.

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