Community car sharing scheme

Lynn Tupling, chief executive of Retford Action Centre, a bassac member in Bassetlaw, explains how sharing a car with a fellow staff member saves £1224 per annum between them.

What motivates you to care about the environment?

My own personal interest came through simply recycling bottles, using low energy light bulbs, buying local vegetables at the farmers markets and only food grown in Great Britain.

I developed Bassetlaw Share-a-Ride after a meeting with employers who said that the barrier in getting people into employment was poor public transport provision.

The project is to encourage those travelling into work to share a car. It also makes travelling to work possible for those people without access to their own car.

Over 500 people

We have over 500 people on the database, which translates to 240,000 journeys a year. For example, I car share with another member of staff. There is no public transport alternative because I live in a remote village. I travel 25 miles in total each day, which costs £4.47 in fuel a day. We save £1224 per annum between us. If we had that amount of money in our hands, we would be delighted. As well as the impact we are having on saving the environment, of course!

Taking practical action

Here are some examples of the ways we have taken practical action:

• One instant decision was to put recycle bins in everyone's office. Anything else goes into a bin which is outside the building, which makes you get up and walk and therefore think before you throw something away. We have to pay to get general rubbish taken away, but we are not charged for recyclable waste. So that is a saving.
• We used to have electric water coolers, which we got rid of and now use tap water in jugs, which we cool in the existing fridge. This saves us £80 a month.
• We have a lunch club for older people every Thursday when we use local produce.

Some more about Lynn and her work

Where were you born?

I was born in Worksop, Bassetlaw. My father worked for the National Coal Board. Twenty two years ago, I moved back to the area, with my husband and bought an old house to renovate. We never meant to stay, but here we are. Bassetlaw is a 256 square mile rural area with two market towns.

What is your history and what has brought you to work for Retford Action Centre?

I have been in the voluntary sector with Retford Action Centre for 12 years. I started out in the private sector working for an industrial plant hire company, supplying the National Coal Board. Later on I worked in a nursing home and later became manager. I realised early on that I liked working with people and making a difference to people's lives. My work in the nursing home gave me experience of working with older people. 90 per cent of the work that we do at Retford Action Centre is with older people.

How did services expand?

When I arrived at the Centre, we already had a community car scheme going, which catered mainly for older people, to help them get around. They would also ask us if there was anyone who could help them with their garden or ask where they could go for some company. We are an ageing population, living for longer.

As the government has decided that people should remain independent in their homes for longer, we have found ways of developing services and supporting people to do that. We work throughout the district. We have a main office in Retford and a community centre, 30 volunteer drivers and outreach workers.

Retford Action Centre is a signatory to the Third Sector Declaration on Climate Change.