Our free Dr Bike bike maintenance sessions now take place monthly at Bristol Beacon on the third Tuesday of every month.
Supporting
How we can help with the Clean Air Zone
Learn more about CAZ.
01/02/2023
BID Lead
Tom Swithinbank
You may have seen signs throughout the city highlighting the fact that Bristol’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) is here and in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a daily charge that runs from midnight to midnight.
Committed to creating a healthier future for everyone in Bristol, the CAZ will reduce harmful pollution in the city and reach the legal limits, set by the government, in the shortest time possible.
We’ve been working with businesses and corporations to find support and help encourage sustainable transport in the city for you and your staff.
INITIATIVES
Here’s the range of initiatives we’ve been working on and with, which we hope will support businesses by promoting sustainable transport for your staff and customers:
Cycle Rides
We’re also supporting cycling to work via a series of led cycle rides. Our first trial of this service will take place in March with experienced cycle instructors from Bristol charity, Life Cycle leading a ride into the city centre. If a personal training session would be more up your street, then take a look at the free 1-1 Cycle Training courses from Life Cycle, online here.
Vouchers
£100 of sustainable transport vouchers are available to everyone who lives and works in Bristol. These include bus, train, e-scooter, car club credit and the opportunity to borrow an e-bike.
Cycle to Work
Continuing the cycling theme, the upper limit on the Cycle to Work scheme has been raised so that e-bikes can now be purchased to help you navigate those Bristol hills! Please contact your company’s scheme for more details.
GWR
Trains on Bristol’s Severn Beach line from which calls at stations including Lawrence Weston, Clifton, Redland and Lawrence Hill now run twice an hour.
The Great GWR Getaway Sale takes place this Spring, book between 10 – 17 January for discounted travel between 17 January and 31 March
First Bus
First Bus have changed their pricing structure with a new £2 cap for single journeys or £3.50 for a return, and the ‘tap on, tap off’ system means you’ll get the best value ticket. Staff working in Bristol are also eligible for reduced rates if their company joins the First Bus Commuter Club which is free to join.
Business support
Financial support is still available for small to medium sized Bristol-based businesses to help pay for EV charging, showers and cycle stores, you can find out more about how to apply online here.
THESE SCHEMES IN ACTION
We’ve also been talking with Triodos Bank around the brilliant work being done to encourage their staff to travel via sustainable transport. Read their top tips below and let us know if we can help you replicate them in your company.
When we set out to find a business who could feature in this blog on best practice in sustainable transport, we knew Triodos Bank would be a good place to start. Triodos is a sustainable bank and finance supplier, with over 700,000 customers across Europe with their head office located right here in the centre of Bristol on Deanery Road.
Triodos offer a range of support to their staff to encourage them to travel to work by sustainable transport resulting in brilliant stats from their Travel to Work survey:
- 78% travel to work via sustainable transport in 2022.
- 3.1% changing to electric and 3.4% Hybrid cars
- 3% increase in using P&R’s
Like many companies, Triodos offer the cycle to work scheme, nice warm showers and changing facilities, and have also recently taken it a step further with bike maintenance sessions and walking to work groups to encourage people to travel to work by bike and on foot. With 45% of staff getting to work via active travel this is proving a successful intervention (33,987 miles by bike/walking and 1,362 miles using e-bikes and e-scooters)
A quarterly travel breakfast encourages staff to talk to colleagues about how they travel to work and to match up staff to walk to work together or car share to one of Bristol’s three park and ride sites.
Triodos have also pledged their support to CyclingWorks Bristol, a business-led initiative to support safer cycling in the city, specifically campaigning for the provision of two direct, continuous and protected bike corridors in Bristol, both east to west and north to south.
Evidence from fellow BID levy payers, Sustrans, emphasises the major benefits of walking and cycling to work for both physical and mental health. This improvement in mental and physical health in turn reduces absenteeism, with absence due to physical inactivity estimated to cost British businesses a total of £5bn per year.
Outlining the benefits of the work they do, David Whiskin, Senior Office Service Manager for Triodos, explained the benefits to the business;
“Sustainability has been at the heart of Triodos since the organisation was set up over 40 years ago in the Netherlands. As a bank that only finances businesses working for positive environmental or social change, it is hugely important that our operations also strive to be as sustainable as possible. “We’re eager to play our part in working towards Bristol having cleaner, healthier air, as well as achieving the city’s net zero goal. Through our activities and initiatives, we aim to help our co-workers understand that we’re part of a wider community of Bristol businesses looking to make changes that are positive for the city, as well as learning about the boost to their own health and wellbeing that active travel can offer.” Speaking about the initiatives of businesses like Triodos, Project Manager, Tom Swithinbank stated, “It’s fantastic to see this approach from Triodos and the benefits it’s bringing to the company and their team. We are keen to offer our support to businesses looking to reduce car use and we look forward to hearing about other initiatives and ideas throughout 2023 as we tackle this key challenge for the city”.For more information about the Clean Air Zone visit our information hub.
