Reigate & Redhill car club? Bring it on!
By Sue Fenton of F Words
The pool-car club scheme being proposed by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council is a fab idea: it will mean that non-car owners can get easy access to a car for anything from short shopping trips to weekends away.
The idea’s been tried successfully in other areas: it’s basically like hiring a car except that it’s more flexible - if you just want the vehicle to pop to the supermarket for a couple of hours to buy loads of tins and bottles that you couldn’t easily carry home on the bus you can do that - there’s no need to sign up to a full day or week as with conventional car hire plans.
I looked into this concept last year, having read about how efficiently such a scheme is already being operated in places like Brighton. At the time, there was nothing similar in Reigate, though when I contacted the council they said they were looking into it. Now, it seems, such a thing could be on the cards sooner rather than later.
I’ve been wondering for a long time if it would be feasible for me to do without my own car. I already have my fruit and veg delivered (from organic veg company Greener Greens, based in Leigh and I often order my bulky shopping like tins and bottles online, which can usually deliver the next day. I buy meat and fish from Redhill market, during my lunch breaks. My office is two miles from my home, so I can - and often do - walk or cycle to work. When I have to go to meetings in London and beyond, or for weekends away, I usually take the train anyway.
For all these reasons, doing without a car sounds do-able. Ironically, the only places I go that would be difficult to get to without the car are the health club and my monthly sessions with the Institute of Advanced Motorists!
The health club is an easy three-mile drive, but a bit tricky to get to on public transport or on foot or bike, due to the dark nights and the steep hills en route.
I could feasibly walk or jog to the advanced driving sessions, which start from Bletchingley, but of course, as attentive readers will have worked out, I need a car once I get there.
The financial benefits of giving up the car are tempting, though. I spend hundreds, possibly thousands, of pounds a year on buying petrol, paying for services, MOTs, car tax and repairs. And all for what? So I can sit in the comfort of my car getting increasingly obese.
I reckon that if I really had to do without a car I could. And if I had the option of a car club scheme locally it would make this car-less state of affairs so much more tolerable, for those occasions when you really do need a set of wheels to get somewhere. Bring on the Reigate & Redhill Car Club!
By Sue Fenton of F Words copywriting services
www.fwords.co.uk