Late-night e-scooter rides refused

Portsmouth's e-scooter trial is due to last until May 2024

A request for late-night e-scooter rental has been turned down.

Operator Voi asked Portsmouth City Council to allow them to be used beyond 22:00 BST in line with its trial scheme in Southampton.

The city council refused, saying it wanted to reduce the risk of the scooters being used inappropriately.

Portsmouth's trial is due to run until May 2024.

Under the current agreement, e-scooters can only be hired between 04:00 and 22:00.

Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson, member for transport, said he was concerned late-night rides could lead to crashes.

“We have to make sure we protect people and I think that [longer hours] is not a good thing,” he said.

The latest figures from the council showed there were more than 73,000 “active users” in the city with 758,000 rides completed covering a total distance of 2 million km (1.2 million miles).

'Genie is out'

Having launched in March 2021, Portsmouth's e-scooters are still operating under a government trial programme which has been extended multiple times.

They can only be used on public land under rental schemes while the government considers adding a new light vehicle class that would legalise their widespread use.

Portsmouth councillors have raised concerns about the speed at which this is being progressed by the government and industry body CoMoUK said delays were leaving the country behind the rest of Europe.

But there have been calls for the scheme to be scrapped with opponents warning the machines are used inappropriately and risk causing harm to other road users and pedestrians.

Mr Vernon-Jackson added: “The genie is out of the bottle now and now that it’s out it will be very hard to put it back in."

“The trial is helpful but we do need to hear from the government about what their plan is."

A ban on rental e-scooters has recently come into force in Paris in response to a rising number of people being injured and killed in the French capital.