Row as we're rated last in Europe for green transport

GREATER Manchester has been ranked as the bottom city in Europe of 42 surveyed for a new study assessing cleaner green transport.

- PAUL BRITTON

Transport chiefs here, however, have questioned the methodology behind the report and raised a series of points in terms of its findings, saying they don't believe 'Greater Manchester is lagging behind everywhere else.

The Clean Cities Campaign, a European coalition of more than 80 organisations campaigning for zero-emission travel, compared 42 selected cities in Europe on a range of modes of transport shared bikes and e-scooters, shared electric cars and zero-emission buses. The quantity and quality of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure currently available to the public was also considered.

Greater Manchester, according to the report, has 0.7 shared bikes or e-scooters per 1,000 people - ranking it second bottom of the 42 behind Edinburgh, which the study said had none.

It didn't rank at all in terms of the number of shared electric cars per 1,000 of the population and has 35 electric or hydrogen-powered buses out of a total available of 2,141, although the report did stress the huge changes on the horizon in terms of green buses under the Bee Network.