Voi e-scooter trial rolls out into north west Bristol to include Shirehampton, Avonmouth and Westbury-on-Trym

Bristol’s Voi e-scooter trial has today (June 7) been extended to the north west of the city in the first stage of expansion of the scheme which will eventually serve the entire city.

Lawrence Weston, Shirehampton, Avonmouth, Henbury, Brentry and Westbury-on-Trym all now come under the rental e-scooter scheme with riders able to travel into the areas and park scooters at designated points.

To ride a scooter on a pay-as-you-go basis it costs 16p per minute, plus a 99p booking fee, while a day pass costs £7.

The move to extend the scheme was announced in March and received a mixed reaction from users of social media living in the areas. Some raised concerns about the safety of e-scooters and the ‘scattered’ parking of them.

Mayor Marvin Rees told BristolWorld he welcomed the fact the e-scooter would be made to all communities in Bristol, not just those in the centre of the city.

He said: “Historically, and it’s always been a challenge, central parts of the city have been the areas that benefit from different innovations and projects.

“Meanwhile areas on the outskirts whether that be Avonmouth, Lawrence Weston or Hartcliffe, have been left out.

“Extending the scheme to all parts of city is just fundamentally fair, and it adds another transport option for people right across Bristol.”

The extension will be the first of two, with the second taking the scheme to a pocket in the south of the city which includes Hartcliffe and Stockwood.

The areas left out initially from the scheme included some of the most deprived areas in the city.

For the expansion stages, 900 extra e-scooters will be introduced along with 600 new parking hubs. Today, the company has also announced the roll-out of its latest model of e-scooter in Bristol, the V5.

The e-scooter trial started in October 2020, and has since had its critics and supporters.

In March, Metro Mayor Dan Norris of the West of England Combined Authority, which holds the contract with Voi, extended the project for the second time since its launch until November 2022.

Mr Norris told BristolWorld that he needed ‘more information and clarity’ over fire safety concerns before the e-scooters could become a permanent fixure, after an electrical fault sparked a huge fire at the Voi warehouse in Brislington last December.