Brompton offers Mayors e-bikes to replace polluting vehicles as new data reveals worst offenders on Clean Air Day
The last few days have seen searing heat and flash flooding. The time is long past for our political leaders to take serious action on the climate crisis.
As you know, one of the key ways to build a better future for everyone is to slash our car use in towns and cities. In the next seven years, we need to reduce car use by over a quarter. Despite that, our recent research shows that instead of leading by example, councils across the UK are using taxpayer money to buy, lease and maintain high-polluting cars for mayors to use.
At a time when the Government is aiming to switch half of all short trips in towns and cities to walking and cycling, mayors need to lead by example and make the change themselves. Especially when new data shows several councils are still using particularly high-polluting vehicles to carry out official duties:
Glasgow’s current Volkswagen Phaeton luxury saloon is the most polluting mayoral car - emitting more than 224g of CO2 per kilometre - and is now ironically banned by the city’s own low emission zone.
The London Borough of Hillingdon are using a Jaguar XJ which releases more than 184gCO2 per kilometre.
Sheffield City Council chose not to charge cars to enter their Clean Air Zone - but if they had, their mayor’s diesel Jaguar XJ Sovereign (184gCO2/km and up) would have fallen foul of the zone.
Knowsley Council is promoting Clean Air Day in 2023, but their mayor also drives a highly polluting Jaguar Sovereign.
Change is possible. In an innovative step towards decarbonising transport, British bike maker, Brompton, is offering councils with the most polluting vehicles the chance to swap their vehicles for state-of-the-art, British-built e-bikes.
E-bikes will play a major role in meeting decarbonisation targets for transport, making it easier for people to take longer journeys without driving.
We’re hopeful that mayors across the country will work with Brompton to ditch their polluting cars and lead the way in embracing low-carbon transport and building a cleaner, greener, healthier and happier future for all of us.
Click the button below to read the briefing note.
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UPDATE: This blogpost was corrected on 20th June. It previously said that the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham have four mayoral cars and a particularly polluting Ford Ranger. This was the case in 2018 but they now only have one car (a Ford Mondeo Hybrid).