Over the last couple of years we made an effort as a family to cut down on how much we used the car – and in October 2011 we finally went car-free.

After seeing that this brave step yielded positive results all around, we’ve decided to tackle the next big area which accounts for a significant amount of our carbon footprint – our energy use at home.

Rob started phasing out his car at the start of 2010

We'd been thinking of giving up the car for quite a while, but hadn't taken the plunge quite yet. The fact that the MOT and insurance were due focused our minds, and we finally ditched the car in October 2011.  So far we've got on... quite well!

Over the previous year, we'd consciously changed how we travelled, thinking about how we got around rather than just jumping in the car.  By considering whether there were alternatives to each journey we made, we'd already nearly halved our mileage.

We'd also moved house during that time, and the options for travelling to work and school were a big factor in where we chose to live. Moving to a house on good bus routes had already helped to cut our mileage even more.

The car got used for a few hours most weekends, and we estimated that it cost around £3000 a year to run. So were there better ways to get around, which might also end up cheaper?