EMPLOYEES at a Darlington business park are being encouraged to take a ‘faxi’ to work.

Lingfield Point in Darlington has around 3,000 people working on-site and has signed up for an online car sharing scheme to make it easier to link up with people making the same journey.

The idea of the journey-share website is to get a group of friends acting as a taxi service to create ‘faxi’ journeys - to save the environment and cash for the users.

Launching the initiative, estate manager Eddie Humphries, said: “Sharing a commute with friends seems obvious - the difference is that faxi puts together friends who just haven’t met yet.”

Lingfield Point is working with Darlington Borough Council on the project which aims to help at least ten per cent of the employees on site.

The launch of the car share scheme follows a recent survey by the council which found that nearly half of those asked at Lingfield Point said they would register for a car sharing scheme if one was offered.

The survey also found that 61 per cent of employees on-site currently drive to work alone, 79 per cent chose their travel mode based on convenience and 28 per cent on cost.

The Faxi website allows customers at Lingfield Point to access workers from businesses across the 90-acre site.

Alex Kay, sustainable transport officer at Darlington Borough Council, said: “Lingfield Point has huge potential for employees to travel more sustainably. With hundreds of people driving to the same place each day at roughly the same time, it makes sense to reduce the number of cars filing up the site and roads on a daily basis.

“From the 547 employees who took part nearly half said they would register for a car sharing scheme. We’re pleased to be working with Lingfield Point on this exciting new scheme.”