He has already equipped his ministerial car to run on gas. They perform like normal cars but can go only 50 miles before they need recharging. It is 40p a litre cheaper to run a car on gas rather than petrol, which means that conversion makes sense for large mileage motorists, but the government hopes that a subsidy will make the switch popular with a wider market. There are already 500 gas outlets in Britain, making the fuel reasonably widely available. We want to improve air quality and reduce the impact of vehicles on climate change.
Motorists can play their part by choosing cleaner, more efficient vehicles.
One of the ideas being put forward is to close city and town centres to polluting vehicles. This would mean owners of gas or electric powered vehicles would be the only ones permitted to drive into towns where air quality limits were exceeded. Thirty British cities are involved, including Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Oxford. The market for alternative vehicle fuels is rapidly expanding in Britain, thanks largely to the low rate of duty of clean road fuels. The government has already offered a limited number of grants for conversion, and this extra money is expected to vastly increase the number.