CAN WE LIVE without the car? No. Can we live with the car? Well, no. At least not on the evidence of the past half century.

Of course, your car is not the problem: it is everyone else’s. In great numbers cars are dirty and dangerous. They clog our streets and choke our lungs. And everybody wants one.

Car traffic in the UK has grown 15-fold since 1950. New car registrations are running at a million a year, and the Government forecasts that levels of serious congestion will double in the next decade. A few decades ago people were still flocking to the suburbs to be as free as the birds with a car alongside every front porch. The growing misery of commuting, and the rediscovery of inner cities as a place to live, has reversed all that. People are back, and with them their cars.

So much so that many councils are refusing permission for new homes unless the developer can do something about the car. The pressure is on to find a solution. And the answer may come in the form of car clubs. Across mainland Europe, and in many big US cities, car sharing is becoming big business, and it is starting to catch on here with local authorities and developers.

Chas Ball, a founder of Smart Moves, a car-share company in Edinburgh, London, Brighton and Bristol, says: “Some councils have banned car parking as a condition of planning approval. Developers might allocate space for car clubs within their sites as a condition of approval. With much tighter parking controls everywhere, they can sell the club idea as an asset. In fact, some developments just won’t get off the ground without a parking solution.”

Barratt Homes has done just that, with a car club in operation at its Iconica development in Ealing, West London. There are 134 apartments here, but only 26 parking spaces (for sale at £10,000 a time). Six spaces are being set aside for the car club, to be managed by the company WhizzGo with a number of Citroën C3s. Barratt also plans to include a car club in The Axis, a scheme of 229 apartments above a new supermarket in Romford, Essex (prices from £179,995) and 169 new homes at its Aspects development in Sutton, Surrey (prices from £166,995).

Every club has its own rules, but they are likely to operate along similar lines to Smart Moves, which works like this: car clubs are introduced in clusters, so that members in a particular part of a city will be no more than a ten-minute walk from their nearest car. These are being located on special parking bays near transport interchanges. Cars are booked by phone or on the internet. Members use a “smart” swipe card to access a vehicle, then key in a PIN number to an advanced “telematics” system to confirm the booking. Without a booking, the car won’t start.

The electronics system also monitors the journey and radios details back to the company for monthly billing. Users pay a £100 deposit against accidental damage and £15 a month membership, then £2.80 to £3 an hour for a choice of Vauxhall Corsas and Astra Estates or a Ford Focus. There is a 17p-a-mile charge, which includes petrol. They can be “fined” for bringing cars back late and may have to pay for a taxi for the next user. Car clubs are slightly more expensive for a whole day than hire cars, but they can be booked by the half-hour, there is no paperwork, and they are on your doorstep.

“The monthly membership only comes to about what you pay in road tax every year,” says Chas Ball. He adds that, if you take into account the costs of finance, depreciation, servicing, repairs, tax, insurance and parking, many families are spending more a year on their motors than their mortgages. The estimated cost of running a Ford Focus doing 12,000 miles a year is £5,300. Imagine the bills for John Prescott’s Jaguars.

The idea of car clubs started in Switzerland in the early 1990s, and there are now 150,000 car club users signed up in Europe and America. The number is growing fast and Smart Moves has its sights on a growth rate of almost 100 per cent in a year. Another company, Streetcar, is expanding from a base of about 20 locations in the capital. It charges £4.95 an hour to use one of its VW Golfs, which includes 30 miles of free petrol (thereafter it is 19p a mile). Whole days are charged at £49.50, or £25 at weekends.

In Edinburgh, with the biggest club membership to date, the city council has also signed up for 120 Smart Moves cards for its own staff, and more are in the pipeline. In London, Smart Move clubs are already being set up in seven boroughs: Brent, Camden, Ealing, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth and Merton. Transport for London is involved in future plans aimed at combining the London City Car Club card with the London Oyster card for use on the Tube and buses. In addition, the huge Arsenal redevelopment in Highbury, North London, will almost certainly give a further boost to car clubs.

Car clubs may not be as convenient as having a motor outside your doorstep, but as more and more towns burst with traffic they may be the only way that the car will survive.

www.smartmoves.co.uk or 01484 483061
www.mystreetcar.co.uk or 0845 6448476
www.whizzgo.co.uk or 0870 4466000

Iconica: 020-8840 7949. The Axis: 01708 469665. Aspects: 020-8652 5952.

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