A community car scheme arranges lifts for people where public or private transport aren’t available. Volunteers offers door to door lifts to people, giving their time freely.  The passenger pays  towards the driver’s petrol, and the County Council pays the driver an additional subsidy.  A scheme is often based on one or more villages, or round a GP surgery.  They are great: “More than just a lift!”.

To set up a community car scheme you need a pool of volunteer drivers (no regular time commitment needed), a public phone number for people to request journeys, and one or more co-ordinators to take the request calls and link passengers up with volunteer drivers who are free at the time.

You also need a small committee, however informal, to oversee the scheme, a bank account and treasurer, and some publicity.  To have the scheme registered with the County Council, volunteer drivers need to agree to be DBS (CRB)-checked and to inform their insurer that they are doing this role.

The County Council has all the paperwork needed to set a scheme up, and supports schemes with some financial subsidies.  Care Network works closely with the County Council and local volunteers to offer practical help and expertise.  We can help with setting up a committee,  recruiting volunteers, compiling driver information, training, DBS (CRB)-checking, publicity, getting hospital parking permits - all a scheme needs  to actually get off the ground and keep  going successfully!

For more information why not take a look at our Community Car Scheme (CCS) Volunteer Drivers Fact-Pack, it can be found in our 'Documents for Download' section.

For details of Community Transport in your area select the appropriate guide at the bottom of the Community Transport Page on the Cambridgeshire County Council Web Site.

If you have any problems trying to arrange insurance that covers you for voluntary driving or if your insurance company is unwilling to confirm that your existing policy covers you for voluntary driving, then you may find this link to the Community Transport Association website useful.  It includes a list of insurance companies that do not charge extra for voluntary driving published by The Association of British Insurers.  Many of these no longer require you to notify them that you intend to driver for volunteering purposes.

Parking Information for Volunteer Drivers
can be found on the following pages