I've never heard of such a program in this fine country. But it would be worth investigating. Who's in charge of the FGBC public policy portfolio?If your excuse is that you can't afford a bike, then it's worth asking your employer whether they offer a "cycle to work" scheme, which effectively grants you an interest-free loan to buy one, repayable in monthly instalments taken directly from your pay cheque. The deductions are made from your pre-tax earnings and you don't pay VAT, so you can save yourself up to 50 per cent on the regular retail cost of a new bike.
If your employer doesn't offer such a scheme, it's worth twisting their arm to start one. As well as any latent benefits from increasing staff's fitness and happiness, companies can also make savings on their staff national insurance contributions. For more information, tell them to take a look at the Department for Transport's website (www.dft.gov.uk) which has all the details.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
"cycle to work" scheme
The Independent runs a regular cycling column, which is interestingly located in their "motoring" section. Fairly standard stuff most of the time, but worth reading anyway--if only to support the idea of giving regular attention to this sort of stuff by a major newspaper. Last week's column, on why Londoners should commute by bike in January, is particularly noteworthy for the reference it makes to what it calls a "cycle to work" scheme. Here's how it works:
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1 comment:
I love the sounds of the program... seems to me though that any company that's going to take on a something such as implementing this cycle to work project probably already pays at least enough for an employee to easily purchase a bike without the program, thus negating the point of it in the first place.
...I won't argue with cheap bikes though
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