THERE is a strong Green movement in Ludlow and south Shropshire but Adrian Kibbler has put himself on the wrong side of the tracks.

IN this area the environmental movement is very strong.

There has been huge growth in the Green Party in Ludlow and south Shropshire and the people involved are extremely active.

For many years the Ludlow 21 environmental group has been very active and the annual Ludlow Green Festival has become an increasingly popular part of the calendar of events and was this year extended to two days.

Ludlow also has a care share scheme to help meet the needs of people that do not need a car all of the time.

In Church Stretton there is a climate care group that is helping people to save money and the planet at the same time.

I am not a member of any political party and have no intention of joining one but I fear that in any event I have trashed any chance of my ever joining the Green Party for life.

In a spirit of confession, I recently was involved in an event that had me driving a 1977 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow with a 6.8 litre engine in the morning and a 1971 Jaguar E-Type with a 5.3 litre engine in the afternoon. To make it even worse I loved every minute of it.

I dread to think what the emissions would be from these two vehicles with a combined engine capacity of more than 12 litres never mind the cost of fuelling them.

My mitigation is that this was an act of extravagance in a lifetime of driving largely small and sensible cars. Of course, these types of vehicles, lovely and iconic as they are make no sense.

These luxury cars are not really motor vehicles at all but items of jewellery on wheels that rich people can flaunt to show off their wealth.

For most people, and especially in a rural area where distances are large and public transport is largely non-existent, owning a car is a necessity.

Emissions are important to most people primarily because the lower the emissions the more economical the vehicle and the lower the vehicle tax.

But many people also care about the environment and following the issue with Volkswagen motorists will be wondering if they can really trust the figures given by manufacturers.

It is also important to see a bigger picture. Over recent years there has been a trend albeit relatively small towards hybrid and electric cars.

But even here the story is not as simple as it might be because there is an environmental cost to extracting the materials for the batteries used in these types of vehicles and also the disposal at the end of the life of the car.

We must also not forget that electricity does not come by magic but has to be generated which carries an environmental cost.

So the conclusion has to be that picking a ‘planet friendly’ car is not a simple issue but, whatever criteria are taken into account, I am sure that ‘my’ Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and Jaguar E-Type are anything but green.