Rise in road vehicles smallest for 20 years

At the end of 2009, there were 34.3 million vehicles registered in Britain – a 0.1 per cent rise on 2008.

The year-on-year increase was the smallest since 1991.

Last year saw a 0.2 per cent increase in licensed cars but a 3.8 per cent fall in licensed heavy goods vehicles (HGV).

The number of new vehicle registrations last year fell 11.3 per cent to 2.4 million, the lowest number since 1995.

Mainly thanks to the Government's car scrappage scheme, the fall in new car registrations was limited to 6.8 per cent. But there was a 35 per cent decrease last year in new registrations of light goods vehicles and a 40 per cent fall in HGV new registrations.

The Department for Transport statistics also showed:

The proportion of new cars powered by diesel decreased, for the first time in a decade, to 41 per cent;

At the end of 2009 there were 114,000 hybrid, electric or gas/liquefied petroleum gas-powered cars;

Volkswagen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Ford, and Renault accounted for almost half of all licensed cars.