PRESS RELEASE

New Car-Free Scheme hopes to make the Isle of Wight a greener place to visit.

The brand new Car-Free Scheme, is the brainchild of Lois Prior, co-founder of the Big Green Island Project Community Interest Company.

Lois has spent many years working to green the islands tourism industry and was given the opportunity to spent time at the Isle of Wight Zoo's green week, finding out about people's travel habits while on holiday.

A map of the Isle of Wight was set up where people placed coloured stickers on places they had visited, or were planning to visit. The colour of the sticker denoted the means of travel, for instance, a red sticker represented car, blue for bus, yellow for train and green for walking or cycling.

By the end of the week the map was awash with red stickers, even where public transport links were good said Lois people were feeling guilty about putting so many red stickers onto the map, especially in front of their children. When asked why they were using their car and not public transport, the answers were usually to do with convenience, cost and lack of information.

The Car-Free Scheme hopes that it can overcome some of these barriers to using public transport. Island attractions and accommodation providers are encouraged to provide some sort of discount or other incentive to people who get there by bus or train, for instance discounted entry tickets or a free bus pass for hotel guests.

What surprised me is that many attractions and some accommodation providers are already offering discounts as part of their green policy, but many failed to promote these discounts effectively, if at all. This scheme will promote any business that can offer an incentive to public transport users said Lois as well as offering information about island buses, trains, integrated tickets and places to visit without the car. The scheme has been kept as simple as possible. There are no vouchers or special passes. All you need to obtain your discount is your train / bus ticket or your Rover ticket. With a weekly bus Rover ticket costing just £40 for a whole family, I am sure that this scheme will also make economic sense as well

The first to sign up to the new web site www.car-free.-scheme.org were Vintage vacations and Goodleaf Tree Climbing who are both offering discounts for public transport users. If you are interested in joining the scheme, please email lois@car-free-scheme.org or call 01983 220220 (leaving a message).

Date: 24^{th February 2010}

Contact : Lois Prior 07890 115547 ^{lois@car-free-scheme.org}