![\"West](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_BR_PG_180625transport-103.jpg\")
West of England Metro Mayor Helen Godwin on a Tier\/Dott e-scooter at Lyde Green, June 2025(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\nAs the scheme expands into South Gloucestershire, the new metro mayor says she’s listening to the complaintsWest of England Metro Mayor Helen Godwin on a Tier\/Dott e-scooter at Lyde Green, June 2025(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n
The metro mayor of the West of England has said she understands that the roll-out of the e-scooter trial to more areas which have not had them before will divide opinion, and said she accepts that the machines are a \u2018divisive\u2019 issue.<\/p>\n
Helen Godwin, who was elected as Metro Mayor last month, told Bristol Live that she is keen for the e-scooters and e-bikes to be on marked out parking bays, rather than across pavements, because of on-going complaints about the way the machines are left after people have used them.<\/p>\n
The Labour<\/a> mayor for the West of England launched the first big expansion of the trial scheme for a couple of years<\/a>, with the area covered by the e-scooters now widening out to the east and north side of the Avon Ring Road in the coming days, weeks and months.<\/p>\n The scheme, now run by French micro-mobility firm Dott, expanded first last week into Emersons Green, and will take in Cadbury Heath, Warmley and Oldland Common this week, and Winterbourne, Frampton Cotterell and Coalpit Heath next month.<\/p>\n There are also plans for the scheme to be expanded into Yate<\/a> and Chipping Sodbury by the end of the year and to Thornbury<\/a> and Alveston, but this is unlikely to happen this year, and could take place early in 2026.<\/p>\n The trial is a Government-led project to assess the safety and usage of e-scooters over a long period of time. It began in 2020 and has been repeatedly extended, now for six years, as transport chiefs gather data around injuries, collisions, road safety and other metrics.<\/p>\n Only e-scooters that are hired as part of a scheme are legally on the road – privately-owned e-scooters are still not permitted on roads or pavements in the UK.<\/p>\n Ministers will eventually have to make a decision on whether to legalise all e-scooters, legalise them all but treat them in the same way they do mopeds, continue with only hired scooters being legal or ban them completely.<\/p>\n Metro mayor Helen Godwin said she understood people had different opinions on the machines.<\/p>\n \u201cI live here so I hear and see all of the same things that everyone else does,\u201d she said. \u201cI know that some people really embrace these, because they get them from A to B really quickly, they’re clean, they’re sustainable, they’re accessible. They solve a problem that we’ve got around congestion, so there are really big fans of the scheme.<\/p>\n READ MORE: E-scooter hire scheme expanding to ‘new areas’ in South Gloucestershire<\/a>READ MORE: Full list of South Gloucestershire locations included in e-scooter roll-out<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd then there are other people that really don’t like it, from some of those drivers that don’t quite trust scooters on the road. Other people are upset about vandalism of them. So I understand that it’s a bit of a divisive issue and I’m completely comfortable with owning that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m not going to stand here and pretend that isn’t the case, but I think there are some things we can do in terms of raising awareness of some of the safety issues, reminding people about the kind of penalties if you’re using them dangerously.<\/p>\n “And also with this particular expansion, we’ve made sure that we’ve got the painted bays as well, which is making a big difference,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n In the early years of the hire trial, when it was run by Voi, complaints flooded in about e-scooters being parked all over pavements, particularly in residential areas. In some cases, locals counted more than 100 in one spot near the Downs, and on North Street.<\/p>\n New firms brought in to run the scheme – Tier, and now Dott – have scaled back the number of parking space sites and done more to restrict the number of scooters or bikes that can be parked in each one, but it still relies on geo-location to specify the boundaries of a parking area, which aren\u2019t defined in real life on the ground.<\/p>\n So the expansion into South Gloucestershire<\/a> will see more parking areas painted out on the pavement or on on-street parking spots. The metro mayor said this was important as the trial moves into new areas.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it’s going to be a mix of pavement and on-street, the same as it is in Bristol. So some of them are on super wide pavement areas, so they’re not blocking pavements, and then some of them will be in parking bays,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is so people can see that this is where they need to go back, whereas in Bristol, for example, some of the parking areas are not quite set out as clearly as that, and so you get a little bit of sort of spread across an area,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Ms Godwin said the team at the West of England Combined Authority offices would be monitoring how effective Dott are at rolling out scooters and e-bikes to the new areas, amid criticism that, in Bristol, they leave large areas with no available machines all day as they all gravitate into the city centre every morning.<\/p>\n READ MORE: What next for the e-scooters of Bristol<\/a>READ MORE: Calls for metro mayor to ‘hold scooter firm to account’ over price hike<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe have to watch it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to see how it goes. This whole thing is still a pilot, so we’re constantly learning and trying to understand the patterns that people are using these.<\/p>\n \u201cIt depends what time of day it is. We’ve got to watch and learn. The team at the Combined Authority are constantly working with Tier\/Dott. We’re getting improved data all the time on how they’re used and the maintenance side, and getting them back out.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for me, if people are using them, I’d rather we have that problem than too many littering up the place and no one wanting them, to be honest.<\/p>\n \u201cBy having these designated expansion zones, we know that Tier\/Dott are going to be working to get the scooters there, and that’s part of it. I think if people are using them, that’s great.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we’ve got to be learning all the time and working with Tier to make sure that they’ve got what they need from us to do what they need to do, so that people can get them if they want them. I think they are a big part of our fabric now in terms of sustainable transport. So I think people accept that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the scheme expands into South Gloucestershire, the new metro mayor says she’s listening to the complaintsWest of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,10648,748,393,4884,528,14143,285,10299,10302,10301,9731,1263,183,16,15,32317,14142,14915],"class_list":{"0":"post-223424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-live","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-labour-party","14":"tag-metro-mayor","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-south-gloucestershire","17":"tag-south-gloucestershire-council","18":"tag-thornbury","19":"tag-traffic-travel","20":"tag-transport","21":"tag-travel","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-warmley","25":"tag-west-of-england-combined-authority","26":"tag-yate"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114765496731068056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Council](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_TCBR030425ScooterBRI.jpg\")
Council contractors create new e-scooter and e-bike parking areas at the top of Marsh Lane in Barton Hill(Image: Karen Nicholls)<\/p>\n![\"Scooters](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1751182397_218_1_Lyde-Green-24.jpg\")
Scooters and bikes are now available at Lyde Green Park & Ride along with their own parking bay. (Image: Freia Turland)<\/p>\n