Cycle To Work Scheme
March 3rd, 2011
Petrol prices are drastically rising at the moment, and increasing numbers of people are taking to their bicycles to make the short trip to work. Not only is this a great way of saving you money, but its also much better for the environment, better for your health, and helps ease congestion for people that absolutely have to use their cars to travel to work. If you are interested in saving money and riding to work then you will be interested to read more about the cycle to work scheme. The government launched an incentive back in 1999 to encourage more people to cycle to work, but its only until now that the scheme is really starting to take off. Again we can pin this new wave of publicity on the drastic rise in fuel prices that we have seen over the past 6 months.
How Does it work?
The soul aim of the governments cycle scheme it to incentivise people to start cycling to work instead of using a vehicle. What the scheme does to encourage people to take it up, is to remove tax charges that would otherwise apply to bikes and cycling safety equipment loaned to employees, however this will only remain valid as long as the following conditions are met:
- The ownership of the bike is not transferred to the employer at any time during the period of the loan
- The employer or employees must use the bike mainly for qualified journeys, such as riding to work, or riding to a train or bus station, from which they are then taken to their place of work.
For a clear explanation please view the video curtesy of Cyclescheme below:
How Can you do it?
There is no minimum or maximum company size that can make use of the cycle to work scheme, and in some cases you can apply for two bikes per employee if you think its required. If you want to find out more information on the cycle to work scheme then a good place to start is the cyclescheme FAQ which can be found here: http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/employee,faqs.htm There is also some useful information on the government website which you can read here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/cycling/cycletoworkguidance/