Newcastle e-scooter trial set to be launched next year

Hundreds of electric scooters are set to be trialled on Tyneside in an effort to get people out of their cars, a council has said.

Subject to government approval, 250 will arrive in Newcastle early in 2021 with that number increasing as the year-long scheme progresses.

The city council said cutting carbon emissions was an "urgent priority".

Opposition councillors said more details were needed about how the scheme would be monitored.

The trial would enable the local authority "to understand what role e-scooters could play" in cutting transport-related emissions, councillor Arlene Ainsley, cabinet member for transport and air quality, said.

The UK's first trial of an e-scooter hire project began on Teesside in July.

Concerns about their safety were raised when two teenagers were caught riding them on the A19.

Last year a bicycle hire scheme in Newcastle and Gateshead, run by Mobike, had to be scrapped after a number were set on fire, abandoned or thrown into the River Tyne.

However, Neuron Mobility, the firm chosen to run the e-scooter project in Newcastle, said geofencing technology would control where its scooters could be ridden or parked and how fast they could travel in different areas.

Plans are in place to create slow-zones, no-ride zones and no-parking zones, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Liberal Democrat opposition councillor Greg Stone said he was "not wholly confident the council has learnt the lessons" of either the Mobike scheme or Teesside's e-scooter trial.

He added "no substantive answers have been received" to questions around measuring effects on emissions and "managing risk to pedestrians".

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