E-scooter hire company Voi are finally extending the pilot scheme into far South Bristol, six months after they first announced they were about to. Voi scooters will be parked up and available to ride around a wide stretch of South Bristol, from Withywood and Hartcliffe across Hengrove, Whitchurch, Stockwood and the outer parts of Brislington.
Voi and Bristol City Council say the extended operating area will go ‘live’ on Tuesday, December 6. Until then, the e-scooter trial stops at the A4174 ring road across South Bristol, that separates Bishopsworth from Withywood and Knowle from Hengrove. Anyone attempting to ride an e-scooter in an area on the other side of the road finds it stops and is disabled, and - at the moment - there are no official areas for the scooters to be parked and picked up by the next rider.
Back in March, Bristol Live broke the news that the Voi scheme would be extended to two areas that it previously hadn’t been, ever since the trial began in October 2020. By early June, the scooter scheme was rolled out to a large area of north west Bristol, from Westbury-on-Trym to Avonmouth and Henbury, making the scooters available outside the previous limits.
Read next: Half of South Bristol 'cut off' by Voi e-scooter no-go zone
On June 7, the scheme was extended into north west Bristol and, at the time, the council and Voi said that the expansion would continue into South Bristol at the start of July, but that didn’t happen. A Facebook Live broadcast by Bristol Live showed the physical limit of the e-scooter scheme at Filwood Green, and what happens when a rider tries to go into Hengrove.
At the end of October, Bristol Live highlighted the continued failure to expand into areas like Hartcliffe, Hengrove and Whitchurch, with local councillor Kerry Bailes pointing out these were areas with some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country, some of the lowest levels of car ownership in the city and had seen cuts to already poor bus services in recent months.
Now, Voi are finally bringing the scooter scheme to these parts of South Bristol, which means the whole of the city, and large parts of the South Gloucestershire areas of Bristol, out as far as Kingswood, will soon be part of the scheme.
How many scooters and where the specific parking areas will be in places like Withywood, Hengrove, Hartcliffe, Stockwood and Whitchurch remains to be seen, and the city council said they expect this to change and adapt as the roll-out south of the A4174 gets underway, and Voi assess where the greatest demand is, and gets to know other suitable locations for the on-pavement ‘virtual’ parking bays.
Read next:
E-scooter rider caught on M5 near Bristol was 'following sat-nav on his first day at new job'
'Next generation' model of Voi e-scooters rolled out in Bristol today
E-scooters 'are five times safer than bikes' major new study has shown
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