St James and Bartonsham Car Club goes live on 1st June! This is really exciting news and something I blogged about here in December. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years, and over the last few months a number of people have put in lots of work (none more so than Rebecca Semple), on legal aspects, setting up a bank account, website, booking system, sorting out insurance, grant applications and lots of other tasks. Now at last we are ready to go! We currently have fourteen households signed-up, and this number is growing. We are planning to start with a ratio of about one car per six households, so are launching with just two cars despite having four cars donated or loaned. We hope to run three or four cars, and will do so as membership grows. We expect to save money, reduce our carbon emissions and reduce the number of cars cluttering up our streets. One benefit is that we are getting to know our neighbours, and we are enjoying working together!
Last Tuesday I gave a talk to the Towards Transition group in Leominster titled ‘Transport for the future’. Redesigning our settlements to be more accessible for walking and cycling, investing in better public transport systems, backed up by the switch from individual car ownership to car sharing clubs and changing from fossil fuels to renewables is all part of what I spoke about. (I’ve blogged here in January about German rail system switching to renewables and in December I wrote about our car sharing club wanting to use the ground breaking Riversimple hydrogen fuel cell cars) There was quite a bit of interest in trying to get a car sharing club going in Leominster. As ever more of us take the initiative and make the changes we want to see in our localities and in the world it gives me hope that a better future is still possible. Onwards!

http://www.sjbcarclub.co.uk/