Cutting Carbon at Sixth Form College
The Sixth Form College has been hosting meetings since 1912. Here’s a gathering of the Colchester Flat Cap and Bicycle Clips Society in 1921.
Carbon emissions are a global problem. But what’s happening locally? Club Members were shown round Sixth Form College by Keith Ellis. He’s the guy that’s busy putting in place environmental projects at the College, making sure new developments follow good environmental principles, and also greening the older parts of the College and grounds.
And what about Travel Planning? The College is in an ideal location for “anything but the (solo) car”. With its central location there are frequent buses to most of Colchester, cycle routes and parking, walking distance to main line and branch line railway stations – and limited car parking space. So, well done Keith and colleagues, for all the good work you have delivered at the College.
“Cutting Carbon Emissions From Travel” was the theme for the TPC Event at VIth Form College. Rachel Brody from Essex County Council shared infromation about their “Business Travel Decision Tree”, which clearly sets out the organisation’s policies on what form of transport must be used for different trips. Check on this link for an introduction to ECC’s “Helping You Create a Business Travel Plan” publication.
“Inntel” shared with us, the services their company can offer. They currently provide a travel and accommodation booking service for Essex CC. They could save your company money through the good deals that they have negotiated, and reducing the time spent by your staff on such matters.
“Smarter Driving” included a local car-sharing campaign which we expect to run in 2012. We will be using part of an award from DEFRA, won by the TPC in partnership with Colchester Borough Council, in connection with improving air quality. Nigel Campling of V102 ran through his ideas for a video clip which we plan will become viral, especially for the target group – the 18-30s who have the best potential for car sharing. It will be tested with that group in December, and launched in January.
On the buses, Emily described new deals with local bus operators, the new timetables and routes, and the soon-to-be-released TPC bus map. The Travel Plan Club is the only source of a detailed bus map for Colchester, showing the frequent routes operated locally. Maybe, at some stage in the future, the bus operators or the highway authority will be able to produce such a map for their customers, but at present it’s only your TPC who are prepared to run with this bus-baton. When it’s completed we will share a link with you. In the meantime here’s the best travel planner we know of.
TPC members gave updates on car sharing schemes and pool bikes, before the final item, the “Legs Eleven” walking promotion for North Colchester Business Parks. Justin Lewis of Vacuumatic outlined the project so far. We have now secured enough funding to be confident we can make it happen, so look out for it in the New Year.
And finally, the tour of the College. Thanks again Keith for hosting. Our next Meeting is on 25 January 2012, where we will be planning our work and targets for the year – can you host? Our next Event is pencilled in for April – do you have a theme you would like us to explore?