The boss of a pioneering Norfolk company has launched a new venture allowing drivers to rent out their cars.

Ali Clabburn, founder of liftshare.com, has ploughed £100,000 into setting up Carloco – an online peer-to-peer car rental service being piloted in Norwich.

The business allows users to decide a rental price for their vehicle on a per hour, per day, or per week basis, with prices being adjusted depending on the model. It will then be put on the Carloco website where people can search for their nearest available vehicle.

Mr Clabburn said the venture has the potential to bring into force millions of UK cars only being used once a week.

And he claims it could help parents drive down the cost of insuring their children by making it cheaper to rent then adding them to an insurance policy.

But he revealed that he was only able to launch the firm after working closely with Aviva to come up with a new kind of insurance that provides compre-hensive cover during the rental period.

The firm will operate as a sister company to EDP Future 50 firm Liftshare, which employs four people at its headquarters on Duke Street, Norwich, and turns over £1.3m per year.

Mr Clabburn said prices will vary, but a person could rent a car for £7-11 for a weekend.

He added: 'It has been an idea that has been burning away in my mind for ages having spent the last 15 years doing Liftshare.

'We have become more and more aware of how many cars that are parked on the road not being used, and when the figures came out about the 'ghost cars' [cars used less than once a week] I began to see how much waste there is. Having spoken to some of my Liftshare members, they are always looking for ways to save, and being able to rent their car out to friends or family is a good way.'

He added: 'We have decided to deliver this from Liftshare, but we have also taken on board expertise from elsewhere.

'The plan is to pilot it in Norwich, learn the lessons from doing it for a couple of months, before rolling it out county by county. Our aim for Norwich is to get 30 cars in a couple of months, so people will be within walking distance of a car no matter where they live on.'