Dirty tricks

 The announcement by Bristol Council that they’re banning diesel cars in the city (and I’m not using the term city centre, because the affected area is larger than that implies) is a kick in the teeth for the private motorist.

For years we’ve been bullied into buying diesel cars, whether we liked them or not. For those of you who live in or drive into Bristol and run your own cars, this will hit you hard financially and relatively soon. You’ll need to get out of your diesel and buy a car with spark ignition – suffering the depreciation and paying extra on petrol and road tax.

I don’t think it will affect Manheim car auctions at this location; if there is a dip in demand for diesel vehicles, they will simply be sent to other sites thanks to their IT systems sending specific vehicles to where they will achieve the best results. The flip side to this is that petrols that would otherwise go under the hammer elsewhere in the country will be sucked up and sent west.

It affects me because I tow my caravan into Spike Island every year. Here you’ll find a caravan site just by SS Gt Britain with 56 pitches that are always booked 13 months in advance – and have been since the ’80s. The money that pours into the surrounding areas such as Hotwells and Bedminister is incalculable.

I reluctantly sold my V8 Disco for an end-of-line Td5 in the middle of the noughties, such was the push to save money on fuel and road tax. If I bought a petrol 4x4 now, I’d end up on the one hand looking like I sold hard drugs – though I’d actually be skint. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than rumbling around in that V8. It felt like Thunderbird 2 towing.

This is the problem when politics interferes with market forces. If this wasn’t such a knee-jerk reaction then market forces would naturally create a balance of petrol/diesel/hybrid – and electric vehicles as demand increases with the usability of the various power sources.

As it stands, Spike Island caravan site was so centrally situated, our towcar never turned a wheel once we’d arrived because we either walked everywhere or took the shuttle boat.

This year will be the last because the site is now closing. The only fumes we ever noticed came from the hippies smoking pot and the buses parked idling.

I reluctantly sold my V8 Disco for an end-of-line Td5