onionbagblog

Published as part of the Keep Colchester Cycling project.

The second speaker at the Active Travel conference held at the University of Essex last week was Michelle Lay-Flurrie from Colchester Borough Council. With the aim of the event to work out news ways to improve transport sustainability within Colchester, Michelle was able to explain more about the Bike to Work scheme that she manages for the borough.

Bike to Work is essentially a tax break to help employees buy a new bike to be used for work commuting purposes. The scheme works by offering a 40% discount on the purchase of a new bike. This is administered by offering tax break in your monthly salary.

At a local level, Michelle explained how CBC has been offering this service for almost three years now:

“Prior to Bike to Work, Colchester Borough Council tried to offer alternatives to the car for employees with a number of initiatives. We experimented with bus vouchers, as well as trying to promote car sharing. The Cycle to Work scheme came about as a natural extension of this transport policy.”

Fifty-four employees within the local authority have taken advantage of the very generous discount to date. To help encourage more usage, CBC has been able to offer further incentives to help make cycling more attractive to its staff:

“We have put in place purpose built safe bike lock ups on site. Tools and bike pumps are offered. Our next stage is to look at offering shower facilities for cyclists.”

A tricky question about policing the Bike to Work scheme was then asked. The letter of the law lays down the idea that the 40% discount is only available if the employee uses the bicycle for at least 50% of the work commute.

“This is a goodwill scheme and we aren’t going to go around snooping on cyclists! We have noticed however a considerable drop in our car parking space from the site locations where the Bike to Work take up is high.”

Which confirms more or less what we knew anyway here at Keep Colchester Cycling: when given the opportunity and incentives to cycle, most folk can see the advantages and will give it a go.

Sadly the scheme isn’t available to self-employed people. What is maybe needed around Colchester is a co-operative bike pool scheme.

Now then – what a great idea…

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