Milton Keynes City Council signs letter to Rishi Sunak urging government to legalise e-scooters

Milton Keynes City Council is among organisations which have signed a letter to the Prime Minister urgently calling on the government to legalise e-scooters.

The signatories have warned the UK is at risk of falling behind the rest of Europe.

Rental e-scooters are currently only available through government trials in just over 20 towns and cities around England – it is illegal to use private e-scooters on public roads.

国际扶轮租赁e-scooters迅速的流行sen, with 2.3 million riders in the UK who have made well over 34 million journeys.

The UK is the only developed nation without either permanently legal e-scooters or committed plans to legalise.

Now Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK), which brings together public, private and third sector organisations to support shared transport, has sent a letter on behalf of more than 50 organisations to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The letter urges him to press ahead with legislation to create a new powered light vehicle class, that would make e-scooters legal.

As well as Milton Keynes City Council, local authorities include Essex County Council, North Northamptonshire Council, Somerset Council, West Northamptonshire Council and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It is also signed by micromobility operators as well as Northamptonshire Police,Transport Action Network and other campaigns.

The letter states that e-scooter trials, due to end after May 2024, are ‘ingrained into local transport systems enabling thousands of people to get to work, higher education and to run errands’.

It argues the estimated 750,000 private and unregulated e-scooters are unlikely to undergo professional maintenance and so legislation could make a difference to the safety of riders and road and pavement users.

It also raises information found by the Clean Cities Campaign that UK cities are lagging well behind other European cities in the rollout of shared and zero-emissions transport including e-scooters.

It adds: “Major shared transport operators stand ready to continue investing and improving transport across UK towns and cities, however, they require long-term certainty that would only come with legislation.”

An independent poll found recently that over 80 per cent of the general public are supportive of new regulatory measures for e-scooters - and over 70 per cent want them introduced before the next General Election, likely to be held next year.

首席执行官理查德•Dilks协作bility UK, said: “The evidence from the trials is that e-scooters are incredibly popular, with huge demand from users, and the UK has been left as an international outlier by not introducing permanent legality.

“To address the crisis levels of transport emissions in the UK and help people save money amid the cost-of-living crisis, the government can’t delay any further.”

Mike Bell, from the Thomas Pocklington Trust, a national charity working with blind and partially sighted people, added: “Unregulated and illegal private e-scooters are terrorising visually impaired pedestrians and many other people on our pavements.

“It urgently needs government to act and regulate the market for both private and rental e-scooters in favour of those responsible companies actively building in safety and street etiquette.”