A major Edinburgh office space is the first of it’s kind to join the City Car Club today but is the gesture enough to make a real difference to employee travel habits?
The West Edinburgh Business Park is the first Scottish office space to join the City Car Club, a scheme which aims to reduce the cost of travel for employees and minimise the number of cars on the road.
At Edinburgh Park the City Car Club membership option comes in the form of one Vauxhall Corsa and one Astra that will be available to every employee in the business park office space. With 7,000 employees sharing the two cars, it’s questionable whether the office space management have done enough to make any impact on the employees travel habits.
The office space management made the decision to offer the car club membership on the basis that it will save members the expense linked with car ownership, for example depreciation, insurance, maintenance and parking permits. However, it will cost employees at the Edinburgh Park office space £75 to become a member of the City Car Club and sharing two cars between more than 7 thousand employees means that potentially they could pay that membership for just a few hours in the car each year!
Pamela Grant, development director at New Edinburgh Limited, developer of Edinburgh Park agreed it was not a daily solution to travel: “The introduction of the City Car Club is an excellent benefit for Edinburgh Park. Many of our employees already travel using greener modes of transport, but we hope that the City Car Club scheme will encourage more employees out of private cars for their daily commute. These cars will be available for essential trips on an occasional basis.”
The Edinburgh Park office space has a range of other green transport options for its 7 thousand employees. These include free to hire bikes and dedicated cycle tracks. The office spaces are also fully fitted with showers to encourage commuters to ride a bike to work.
Tags: City Car Club