Plug in scooter to patrol airport

Sgt Kenny Brown will patrol the car parks at Glasgow Airport

Police at Glasgow Airport will use an electric scooter to patrol car parks in the area.

Officers decided to reduce their carbon footprint with the introduction of a 'green' scooter to their fleet.

The Vectrix scooter needs to be plugged in to charge, which takes an hour. The machine has no carbon emissions and reaches speeds of 62mph.

Strathclyde Police is one of the first forces in the UK to purchase such a vehicle.

Insp Colin Pearson, chief of Glasgow Airport police unit, said: "We have two other motor scooters just now which are both petrol driven but they are coming to end of their life. We felt that to go for the green option would be the proper thing to do".

Plug it in

Sgt Kenny Brown is one of a team of officers who have been trained to ride the scooter.

He said: "They have been trialled elsewhere and we have trialled them here at the airport but I believe we're the first to purchase the machine and put it into operational use".

He added that the acceleration is smooth and because the scooter is light it is easy to manoeuvre.

"Instead of going to a petrol station you just plug it into a socket, and an hour's charge will do a full shift of running about the airport, so it's ideal for our use and very quiet and very clean," he added.

The machine will mainly be used to enforce parking measures at the airport, which were put in place following last year's terror attack