Interest in car club grows as local authorities bid for funding

Carplus is reporting ‘widespread interest’ as it launches the bidding process for £500,000 of Government funding for car clubs.

The funding will be used for three demonstration projects in England to:

• Expand an existing car club to meet the potential market in a town or city.
• Establish a new car club in a city, town or county.
• Develop better links between public transport and shared transport – including car clubs – to make travelling simple without owning a car.

The three projects will be delivered in three different towns, cities or areas.

In addition, Carplus is managing a car cub challenge fund, providing smaller grants to help kickstart or expand projects in small towns and rural areas.

This will also fund projects that aim to improve integration between car clubs and other ‘shared mobility’ modes of transport like bike sharing as well as public transport.

Carplus will be holding information sessions on September 22 (Leeds) and  September 23 (Bristol) for interested local authorities.

The information days will cover the bidding process to become one of the three demonstration projects or apply to the challenge fund for assistance with smaller projects.

Carplus staff will be joined by representatives from six car club operators across the two sessions, with City Car Club, Co-wheels, E-Car Club, and Enterprise CarShare at the Leeds session and additionally Co-Cars and Zipcar in Bristol.

In addition, guidelines and timetables for bidding have been published on the Carplus website.

The two information days have provoked widespread interest among local authorities, according to Carplus, with attendees from Newcastle in the north to Plymouth in the south.

“It’s refreshing to see how much interest has been generated by this announcement of support for shared transport and how much potential there is for expanding access to car clubs across England,” said Chas Ball, chief executive of Carplus.

The deadline for expressions of interest is October 13 (demonstration projects) and October 24 (challenge fund).