The comments from the firm come as car2go announces that it is pulling its car sharing scheme from the UK – including the closure of its Birmingham operation opened a year ago.

In a statement, the firm said that it would be pulling out of the UK from the 30th May 2014. The scheme was launched in London in December 2012 and expanded to Birmingham in May 2014, marking the 19th city around the world to offer the car2go scheme.

Commenting on the announcement, James Finlayson, managing director of City Car Club – said to be the UK’s largest independent car club and operates in 17 cities across the UK – said: ‘Although Car2Go has been unable to make its business model work in the UK, the car club sector in general is in robust health – the latest figures from the industry show membership is up 9% this year on the back of five years of sustained growth.  Our business model, which involves members returning the car to the original parking space rather Car2Go’s model where cars can be left across a given area, means we can offer our members a reliable service with cars available in consistently convenient locations, something which we have found to be essential when operating in large cities such as Birmingham.

‘In our experience it isn’t so much the UK culture of car ownership that’s the barrier, making people aware that there’s an alternative out there that’s the real challenge. Once people understand how car clubs work and the cost savings involved  it’s  often a no brainer for them – renting (whether it’s houses or designer handbags) is becoming increasingly the norm. We also don’t see car ownership and being a member of a car club as a binary choice, often people join us because they have only one car in the household and occasionally need access to a second car and our offering successfully fills that gap.’