TWO Rivers Housing is trialling new electric cars in a bid to cut travelling costs and fuel emissions.

The housing association's offices at Newent were built with electric car charging points for the benefit of staff and visitors. Now it has borrowed a Nissan Leaf from Five Acres Garage, and staff are test driving it for six weeks to see if it would be a more economical and ecological solution for some of their business journeys.

It is hoped that the electric car will prove a hit and will be introduced permanently to cut travel costs and reduce vehicle emissions.

"We are committed to doing what we can to reduce the impact of our activities on the environment," explained Gerry McFall, head of new business at Two Rivers Housing.

"An electric car makes sense to us when we're making short, local journeys so we're looking forward to test driving the Nissan Leaf and, hopefully, introducing another environmentally-friendly dimension to our business."

Kevin Alexander, head of contract services, was one of the first to get behind the wheel. He said: "We were apprehensive when the Leaf was first delivered, but drives like a regular car.

"We're looking forward to putting it through its paces and have planned for a number of our colleagues to trial the car over the next few weeks. Our concerns about its range and the time taken to charge it seem to have been dispelled and so far we have been very impressed."