Owning a car is ‘outdated’ says Minister

A GOVERNMENT Transport Minister has said owning a car is outdated ‘20th Century thinking’ and will soon become a thing of the past for most people in Britain.

Junior Transport Minister Trudy Harrison, 45, told a green travel conference that the country was ‘reaching a tipping point where shared mobility in the form of car clubs, scooters and bike shares will soon be a realistic option for many of us to get around’.

Speaking to a virtual audience at transport charity CoMoUK, Ms Harrison said the UK needed to move away from ‘20th Century thinking centred around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low-carbon shared transport’.

She added: ‘Changing the way people consider car ownership and dependency will take time, but many things seem far fetched until they aren’t, and I believe the same is true for shared mobility.’

Cars are responsible for about 13 per cent of Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Government said it intends to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050 and has committed £5billion to ‘greener’ transport such as walking and cycling.

One way of achieving this is by the banning of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

E-scooters are also expected to be made legal on UK roads to promote a greener way of getting about. Currently, almost 80 per cent of households in the UK own a car, according to figures by data firm Statista.

This equates to 63.5 million households owning at least one car, out of a total 80.7million.

SARAH VINE IS AWAY