If an Englishman’s home is his castle, his car must be his prized steed. As a nation we guard our shiny motors jealously and, try as successive governments might, getting us to dismount and climb on public transport is no easy task.

But rising fuel prices, congestion and impossible parking in many cities are forcing a growing number of drivers to question the costly practice of running a car. However, instead of swapping cars for buses, trains and bikes, a growing number of them are finding a novel alternative: they are becoming members of a new breed of car club.

The idea is simple. After joining up, members can book a car over the phone or internet, walk to a designated parking bay nearby and pick up the car. Instead of using a conventional key, they gain entry by placing a smart card against a point on the windscreen. The keys are left inside the car, but the smart card is needed to deactivate the immobiliser.

After each trip, the driver pays only for the time and distance travelled; fixed costs, such as tax, insurance and repairs, are covered by the club out of membership fees. The system relies on the honesty and goodwill of club members to return the car to the allocated space in time for the next member to pick it up. Drivers who return the car late, and thereby keep other members waiting, are typically fined £25, £20 of which goes to the member who was inconvenienced by having to wait.

There are now 27 such car clubs across the UK (mostly in cities, but some rural areas have got in on the act), with 144 cars used by more than 1,500 members and rising.

Converts to the system say that it is cheaper, easier and more convenient than hiring a car, without the hassle and expense of actually owning one. “For me, the ease of it all is the significant thing,” says Gina Gibb, a 27-year-old communications consultant from Fulham, southwest London. “I work long hours and don’t want to have to haul myself to Avis or Budget to sign forms and show three pieces of ID before I can pick up a car. I just book the car out, walk to the parking bay — two minutes from my front door — and go. It couldn’t be easier.”

Britons have been slow to catch on to the idea: it is now widespread in the United States and Germany. And in Switzerland, where the trend began, there are 1,700 club cars serving 58,000 members.

The first British car club began in 1998 in Leeds as a joint venture between the city council and Budget, the car rental company employed to carry out the scheme. The club, however, folded after two years.

“It is difficult to change how people think about their cars,” says Chas Ball, the joint managing director of Smart Moves, which runs City Car Clubs in Edinburgh, London, Brighton, Bristol and Wiltshire (see www.smartmoves.co.uk for details). “But we have learnt a lot from the Dutch and the Swiss about how to make the clubs work,” he says. “Where there is density of population, and people live in the city centre, car clubs work best.”

Jane Ewins is a researcher at Edinburgh University and lives in the desirable but often congested area of Merchiston, near the heart of the city. “I walk to work every day, so there would be no point me having my own car, plus it just isn’t practical to keep a car in the middle of the city,” says Ewins, 31. “However, I don’t like the thought of not having access to one, so the car club suits me perfectly.”

Ewins is a member of Edinburgh City Car Club and mostly uses the car to escape for day trips and weekends away. “It is impossible to get to many stately homes or parts of the Scottish countryside without a car,” she says. Ewins pays a monthly membership fee of £15, an hourly rate of £2.80 for a small car or £3 for a larger one, and a mileage charge of 17p per mile, including fuel, meaning a typical day trip to the countryside would cost about £30.

“The best thing about being a member of the car club is that I can be spontaneous. I can book the car in advance, but I can also book it on the spur of the moment and just go somewhere. It gives me all the freedom of having a car, with none of the hassle of keeping one of my own.”

The biggest single car club, Streetcar, is based in London (see www.mystreetcar.co.uk). It opened in April this year after the founders, Andrew Valentine and Brett Akker, came across a similar scheme in New York. It already has 500 members, 30 cars in 15 locations and is opening new sites almost weekly.

Streetcar has a fleet of VW Golfs in bays across the capital which members can book out for anything from half an hour to three days for £4.95 an hour plus a lifetime membership fee of £25. Thirty miles is included in the price, mileage is 19p per mile thereafter, and there are no hourly charges between midnight and 6am.

The clubs are not just being used for the odd day trip either. Andrew Brown, 41, a sales company director who lives in Clapham, south London, uses a Streetcar every morning to take his son Piers, who is 4½, to school three miles away. He says the saving on not running a second family car in London is enormous.

“With the finance, the insurance and the off-street parking, we were spending about £570 a month on running our second car,” says Brown. “My wife drives to near Heathrow every day and I only ever used the other car for the school run. I now use Streetcar for a couple of hours in the morning, four days a week, which costs a maximum of £160 a month.”