Travel plan

One of the four Sustainability Partnership objectives is to reduce carbon emissions arising from travel incurred by South Ayrshire Council's staff, and to encourage more sustainable forms of travel. This ties in with the commitment to  South Ayrshire’s Climate Change Declaration (which contained several action points, including the requirement to develop a Climate Change Action Plan), and the Local Transport Strategy. South Ayrshire Council's Travel Plan was developed using the results from a staff travel survey, and utilising free consultancy offered by JMP Consulting. The Plan outlines actions, recommendations and targets to encourage reduction in car travel from four main areas of Council operations:

• Staff commute - 70% of staff travel by car, alone
• Business travel - 2.7 million business miles were claimed in 05/06
• Fleet - use of Council fleet vehicles in 2005/06 resulted in the emission of an estimated 4024 tonnes of CO2
• Procurement and service delivery

Low and no-cost awareness raising measures are underway, such as:

• Encouraging cycling by arranging bike clinics; installing cycling racks and lockers; augmenting and capitalising on the forthcoming Cycle to Work scheme; creating a Bicycle User Group to gather comments and suggestions to improve cyclists, facilities.
• Encourage more walking by focussing on health benefits
• Making walking and cycling information more available