Zipcar potential withdrawal from London

I live in South London and gave up my car due to ideal lack of parking spaces and the prolific danger of car theft and wilful damage which is prevalent all over the city. The fact is, London local government want us to use public transport for various sensible reasons. Nevertheless, the advantages of using car sharing schemes ticks the boxes that reduce the amount of private cars on the roads. London has huge plans to re-develop our urban landscapes, planning to build hundreds of new tall buildings and houses in the next decade. We need to get the cars away from street parking and into local hubs, maybe basements or ground floors of these new buildings? Technology now exists to use every square meter of a building's underground footprint by utilising automated parking systems with integrated EV charging. Imagine, taking a lift to the basement and getting into a fully charged EV and just driving out of a reception room? You don't even have to park it and it is safe, secure, charged and ready to go when needed. Please check out my linked in page for more info on this as it can be the only solution to get hire cars of our street and into accessible locations for their customers. linkedin.com/in/richard-paul-5b8b692a9

It would mean I have no mode of transport for the weekend's away, the day out to the golf course, the weekend grocery run, the kids to the park. It means resorting to buying a car (which is an unecessary luxury in London) or using a rapidly declining quality service rideshare.

It will make it more difficult for our borough to achieve further reductions in overall car ownership and potentially lead to local businesses and residents considering purchase of private car or van.

As a local authority, it is a huge disappointment having spent 2 years+ procuring a concession contract for them to operate in the boroughs. It is part of the Corporate Plans to encourage alternatives to private car ownership in London and free up kerb space from private motor vehicle parking to allow more active travel and green options e.g. cycle hangars, micromobility bays, planters/parklets etc. The other large operator does not pay the London Living Wage so it is an issue to finding an alternative supplier. Council services also rely on car clubs to deliver some services so it is presenting a real issue to some departments & essential frontline services.

I live in London zone 2 and don’t own a car because I can occasionally (less than 10 time per year) use a range of Zipcar vehicles (cars and vans) for return trips near my home. I use a vehicle to travel with my pet, move furniture or waste to the recycling centre, buy large groceries or supplies or travel outside London to locations poorly served by public transport. I also use a car club to travel evenings and nights, as a female lone traveller I feel it is sometimes safer and cheaper than pvh to do so by car club. Within 10-15 minutes of my home I can find 10+ zip cars and one enterprise car. Zipcar closing will mean all my ward which includes many new low car developments will now depend on one vehicle rather than 10+. Even with 10+ vehicles it is often challenging to find a vehicle during w/e as the area has many similar socio-economic households with similar travel needs. I find it easier and cheaper to use car club rather than owning a private car, which would put a financial stain on my finances.

I use ZipCar to get my mobility impaired partner to and from medical appointments - but, most importantly, to help her get out of the house and into nature. Very sad to be losing this.

It's going to change my and my husband's lives somewhat. We don't own a car, and haven't for the last 12 years of living in London. It's a perfect way to pick up bulky items and make trips where public transport is just not feasible. I don't see us buying a car, but we have renovated our flat and use it frequently to pick up second hand furniture from local sellers. I think this will deter us from this sort of buying and rely more on deliveries on new goods. The transit vans also helped in house moves and studio moves.

Rarely need a car however have always used ZipCar when a real need arises. Has been great for short trips out of London or collecting moving furniture etc. Also loss of what feels like a community asset where every ounce of community is important in a hard city like London.

It's completely demoralising that such a globally renowned service operated by Zipcar cannot find the policy frameworks to flourish. It's a damning indictment of flawed policy direction of the DfT and TfL. This is 21st century - catch up.

We have used Zipcar's vans on occasion such as when moving home (within London). This would have been impossible to do without Zipcar. If it wasn't available we would have had to hire a car in London (more expensive to us), or hired or borrowed a car outside of London and driven it in (adding vehicle miles). The availability of easy hire vans on occasion supports us to live a 99% car-free life.

After four years not owning a car, facilitated by Zipcars available within walking distance of my house in Bowes Park, I'm now seriously considering if I need to buy a car again. This is the opposite of what I want to be doing, but will have no choice for the few trips where public transport, walking or cycling are not possible.

We - a family of four - went carless 9 years ago. One of the key enablers of this was Zipcar UK's Flex service. With the closing of ZipCar in London looking probable, we will not be alone in thinking seriously about having to have a personal car again - clearly a retrograde step. We will give it a while and take a view in a few months, assuming the service does close.

It's depressing because we are already not served week enough by car clubs, especially in outer London boroughs - whilst we have a zipcar membership, our nearest zipcar is 2 miles away -we have always found this too inconvenient, it's too far to walk and if you cycle to pick it up you have to (a) leave a bicycle at risk of theft (often there is no secure cycle parking nearby) and (b) have to allow enough time to cycle out, bring the car back to then load up kids etc... It can easily add 30-45 minutes to the hire time required. In the end (and despite enquiries with many other providers to get a car club car closer to us), we caved and bought a car despite really not wanting to. Now we are responsible for bringing yet another clunky piece of metal to further clog up our road as it sits there unused for most of the time.

I'm gutted. Zipcar was a great service. it allowed our family to not own a car and get easy, quick and affordable access to a car when we occasionally needed it. For trips outside of London or moving heavy objects. We only used it as a substitute to owning a car and viewed it as another option to walking, cycling, getting a bus or train. Given zipcar's extensive network there is simply no current alternative, that provides the the same level of neighbourhood accessible service. And we didn't want to own a car for economical and environmental concerns. I'm also really annoyed with our political leaders. I voted for Sadiq and Labour, but their short term measures, such as making car clubs mostly eligible for the congestion charge increase are short sighted. Car clubs are part of the solution to congestion and clean air, not the problem. Much more should have been done to reduce car clubs costs and improve their viability, especially as most aren't profitable. With the high cost of living, this is going to hurt so many Londoners who'll struggle to afford to own a car.