A CLAMPDOWN on car use at a North Yorkshire council has saved the cash-strapped authority about £20,000.

Staff and councillors at North Yorkshire County Council clocked up 41,544 fewer miles during a four-month spell last year than they did in the same period in 2009 as part of an internal campaign also aimed at making the organisation greener.

The “small steps, big difference” efficiency and environmental drive saw members and employees being asked to look at car-sharing, using public transport and whether they needed to travel to meetings at all as the council faces a £35 million funding shortfall in 2011/12.

The latest update on the campaign showed cutting down on mileage between July, when it was launched, and October last year had also saved 13.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions, and the distance-reductions equated to 67 journeys from Land’s End to John O’Groats or travelling more than one-and-a-half times around the world.

Based on the council’s business mileage rates, about £20,000 was saved during this period. Assistant chief executive Gary Fielding said: “We are trying to be more ambitious than that.

“By looking to reduce mileage across the board, we hope to save hundreds of thousands of pounds. This campaign will appeal to some because of the environmental issues, but everybody needs to understand that this can also go towards saving people’s jobs.”

A report by the authority’s head of policy and partnerships, Neil Irving, said: “The campaign asks staff and county councillors to think about the way they work and look for ways of reducing the county council’s environmental impact while also saving money.”

It claimed the council had backed this up by promoting video, phone and web conferencing, combining a number of meetings into one day, drawing up posters to encourage staff to join the campaign and running an eco-driving challenge.