Car club expansion

New "car club only" parking spaces are appearing in Barking, including Salisbury Avenue (near Priory Road), Axe Street (near 'The Victoria') and St Erkenwalds Road. The spaces will be occupied by Streetcar microhire vehicles.

Cars and therefore car clubs are unlikely to be "deep green", but not owning a car is a stepping stone to a more sustainable lifestyle and car clubs and microhire can help with this. Even if your motivation is not environmental, you can free yourself from some of the hassle of car ownership by joining one of these schemes.

Cars available for common use also free up space,which is at a premium and reduce the amount of cars standing idle - better asset management.

http://www.streetcar.co.uk/

Micro car hire

These schemes use technology to make it possible to hire cars for short periods of time. I'm aware of three schemes (yet again the disadvantages of competition kick in) of which streetcar seems to have the most vehicles, including some convenient for Barking. Transport for London figures indicate that one car club vehicle in London can replace the need for 10 privately owned vehicles.

http://www.whizzgo.co.uk

http://www.zipcar.com

Streetcar

It's been pointed out to me that this car micro-hire firm now has cars relatively close to Barking (in south Ilford) and a van in Barking. http://www.streetcar.co.uk/. This might provide a good alternative to car ownership for those who need occasional access to a car/van.

They are also looking for spaces to keep their cars - see http://www.streetcar.co.uk/locationsearch.aspx, so if you have a drive or reserved space, check out the deal.

I thought I'd mentioned streetcar on stibasa before - but I can't find anything