Yeovil, Gloucester and Cheltenham e-scooters to stay until May 2024

Trials of electric scooters for hire in Somerset and Gloucestershire have been extended for another 18 months.

The Department for Transport gave local councils, where the scooters were already operating, the option to extend until May 2024.

Councils in Yeovil, Cheltenham and Gloucester decided to continue.

The future of Minehead and Taunton's e-scooter trials is still being decided on.

Cllr Sarah Dyke, Liberal Democrat, the environment portfolio holder on South Somerset District Council, said many of Yeovil's e-scooters were being used by commuters.

"A lot of the trial period was during Covid so the government wants more facts and figures to decide how e-scooters may become a legal form of personal transport going forwards," she said.

"We've had 61,000 journeys at an average of 1.85 miles per trip and that's really important because journeys in fossil-fuelled cars below three miles cause the greatest amount of air pollution and emissions."

Ms Dyke said there have been no reported accidents involving the e-scooters in the past year in Yeovil.

"They're set to a maximum speed of 15mph and really it's no different to having a bicycle moving around a town centre environment," she added.

Somerset West and Taunton Council said it was analysing feedback from a public consultation to help decide whether to extend the trials in Minehead and Taunton to 2024.

In Gloucestershire, the scooters can be used on roads within certain boundaries in Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Since the scheme was launched in autumn 2020, they've been used more than 250,000 times.

E-scooter trial operator Zwings said it may expand the number of scooters and the area of the trial in the two cities, in the coming years.

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