public transport

Notwithstanding current thinking I think Roger Taylor was onto something in 1975 when he sang the classic track “Im in love with my car” on “A Night at the Opera”. I also remember trench warfare between my local authority and Government Office in the “noughties” over our members refusing to sign up to the dictat about reducing the use of the private motor car in the last full blown Structure Plan. Cars are an important lifeline in rural communities. This article suggests we are a long way from dispensing with them. It tells us:

British appetite for new cars surged ahead in April, as a rosy outlook for the UK economy triggered an upwardly revised sales forecast in 2014.

New car registrations rose 8.2% last month, to 176,820 vehicles, marking the 26th month of rising sales and matching the previous longest period of expansion, in the late 1980s.

It followed a 17.7% increase in March, which is typically a strong period for registrations because it is a plate change month.

Demand and an improved economic backdrop prompted the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the trade body which publishes the data, to revise its forecasts for new car sales in 2014 from 2.3m to more than 2.4m. That would be a 6% increase on 2013.

Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: “After the bumper plate-change month of March, the UK car market returned to more modest but still positive growth in April. This marks 26 consecutive months of growth as GDP continues to pick up, inflation falls and wage levels improve.”

April’s registrations took the total in the first four months of the year to 864,942, up 12.5% on the same period in 2013. Sales have been supported in recent months by the wide availability of car finance deals and a rising demand for more fuel efficient vehicles.