Community

Gays embrace innovative car rental schemes

Apr 02 2008
Written by Adam Lake

Car Club schemes, a service popular among the gay community, have today been given support from Green Party candidate for Mayor of London Sian Berry.

According to company City Car Club, a large amount of gay and lesbian drivers are signing up to the scheme, where members rent the use of a car by the hour.

City Car Club has a fleet of more than 300 cars. It claims that once signed up to the scheme members cut down on unnecessary car journeys by as much as 35%.

CEO James Finlayson said: “City Car Club is immensely popular among gay and lesbian drivers.”

The scheme could save more than 2,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, the equivalent of 530 flights to Australia.

The popularity of the scheme has seen an increase in capacity in areas with a large gay population.

“We have seen a high uptake from this community,” said Mr Finlayson.

“In most cases that the reason for joining was to reduce their carbon footprint.

“As a result, membership has really taken off, and we have had to add more cars to our fleet to meet the growing demand, especially in London and Brighton.”

Over the past year City Car Club has doubled in size and there are now around 6,000 members across the UK and 300 cars in London, Edinburgh, Norwich, Brighton and Hove, Bath, and Bristol.

The scheme has also gained support from The Green Party:

“We are all for car clubs,” a spokesman told PinkNews.co.uk.

“It is one of the central planks of our strategy to reduce congestion, pollution and needless car use in London.”

Green Party London Mayoral Candidate Sian Berry also supports the scheme.

“A Green Mayor would rapidly increase the space available for car club parking by creating dedicated bays within controlled parking zones across London,” she said.

“The target would be for every home to have a car club space with five minute walk by 2012.”

Five candidates for Mayor have confirmed they will attend a hustings organised by gay equality organisation Stonewall.

Incumbent Mayor and Labour candidate Ken Livingstone, Conservative Boris Johnson, Lib Dem Brian Paddick, Ms Berry and Respect – The Left list candidate Lindsey German will all speak and answer questions at the event at BFI Southbank on Saturday 19th April.

PinkNews.co.uk is proud to be Stonewall’s media partner for the hustings, which will be held at the between 11am and 12.30pm.

The event is open to everyone, but in order to ensure a seat you must register here.

Full list of candidates for Mayor of London:

Richard Barnbrook

British National Party

Gerard Batten

UK Independence Party

Siân Berry

Green Party

Alan Craig

Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party

Lindsey German