News

Green Queen’s Campus

(18 February 2003)

Lecturers and their students could soon be travelling to University together thanks to a new internet car share scheme launched by the University of Durham. This item was reported in the Evening Gazette (22/02/03)

The Queen’s Campus, Stockton car share scheme has been created with the support of staff and students in a bid to reduce the number of cars travelling to and from the busy Teesdale site. The special website has been designed to help staff and students find suitable car share ‘partners’ on their journey to and from Stockton thereby reducing congestion, whilst doing their bit for the environment and saving themselves some money.

The car share scheme has been created as part of the Campus’s wider green travel initiatives which aim to publicise alternatives to the private car and encourage the take up of green travel. A Green Travel Plan has been developed to promote the use of public transport services and the use of bicycles, as well as implementing improvements to transport services.

John Bancroft, Bursar at Queen’s Campus and Chair of the Green Travel Plan Working Group said: “With over 2,000 students and staff at the Campus, it is important that we do all we can to promote the efficiency of personal travel. Often the least efficient way is one person in a car. We are taking a variety of measures, including this new car share scheme whilst lobbying to improve public transport.”

The Green Travel Plan Working Group has been established to move towards achieving the aims of the plan and a number of measures have already been put into place. A travel information web page is available to staff and students where they can find out about ‘green’ methods of travelling to and from the Queen’s Campus, a Bicycle Users Group has been created to improve the facilities available to cyclists and a Pedestrian and Public Transport Users Forum has also been set up.

The University has developed an inter-campus bus service between Stockton and Durham in association with Arriva to improve travel between the University’s two sites. Staff and students can take advantage of a free bus service and also a reduced ticket price on public bus services during University term time.

John Bancroft commented: “Since the inter-campus service was introduced there has been a big increase in the use of the bus as a method of travelling between Stockton and Durham, which is just one of the aims of the Green Travel Plan”.