A Car Club for Lancaster


Do you live in Lancaster?

Do you need to use a car sometimes, but don’t want the hassle and cost of owning it?

Nowhere to park?

Would you like to get rid of your second car?

 

Lancaster Community Car Club group founded. Please join us.

Next Meetings

2.00pm Wednesday 15th December – Gregson Bar: An opportunity to find out what’s going on, have questions answered and to socialize with other like-minded travellers.
6.00pm Wednesday 15th December – Gregson Bar: An opportunity to find out what’s going on, have questions answered and to socialize with other like-minded travellers. (I will be there till 9, so do come late, if 6 is too early)

7.00pm Monday 17th January – Friends Meeting house:A more formal catch-up on developments. Presentation of developments, feedback and introductions to prospective new members.

Report
On October 27th, in the Friends Meeting House, we had our first public meeting, to share the fruits of nine months work and research on setting up a car club in Lancaster. This is the fourth attempt to do this in the City in recent years, but this time we re determined to succeed. Prior to the meeting, we invited everyone who had taken part in the Car Club Survey to comment on our proposals.

As a result, we have set up the Lancaster Community Car Club, under the wing of the Transport Group of TCL. It runs as a supporters group for those who want to get actively involved in using the car club, once it is set up. It is also for those who just want to offer us their support. We are asking those who want to join us to contribute £5, to cover basic admin and development costs.


The Plan
The first phase of our plan is to have three Cars available by April under the management of the Community Interest car club company Commonwheels.

For this we need the following:

  • 60 people committed to signing up to use the cars (10 already committed)
  • Three car owners who would make their cars available to the scheme. There are generous benefits available for this, so anyone who is interested please contact me.
  • Funds of £6,000 to kit the cars out with the telemetric booking system and to cover minimal local admin. (some funds already pledged)

Then we are good to go. As you can see, have made a good start with all of this.
In addition to getting the car club up and running, the main purpose of the Club is to start creating that sense of community between interested sharers, which is so essential to develop trust. With this in mind we aim to offer the following:

  • Development meetings and socials, so members can be informed of the latest developments, invite along new people and get to know each other.
  • Sharing information on existing smart ways to travel, share journeys and hire out cars, as part of our promotion of the existing sustainable transport options, and also to get people into the habit of coordinating journeys with each other.


There are plans afoot to create a network of car clubs throughout Cumbria and our Lancaster club would be linked into that network. This will mean that any member of the Lancaster Car Club will also be able to hire cars in any of these other clubs throughout Cumbria.

If anyone wants more information, or wants to join us, please contact me, Michael Hallam mike@threefolding.com and/or just come along to any of the meetings.