It was due to finish in May.
Salford’s electric scooters are set to stay for another two years after the council decided to extend the trial period. Managed by Lime Scooters, the scheme has been in place since October 2020 as part of a partnership between the council and the Department for Transport (DfT).
The e-scooters offer an alternative way to zip around the city for those who are over 18 with a provisional driving license, with a basic charge of £1 to ‘unlock’ a scooter using the Lime app, and then 17p per minute during a ride.
Salford council said the scooters are ‘great for short journeys or trips’ where other public transport options are not available.
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The trial period was due to end in May 2026 but has been prolonged.
A Salford council spokesperson said: “Salford’s e-scooter trial launched in October 2020 and has been growing in ridership as well as in the trial area, enabling more journeys to be switched to e-scooters.
“The current period as set out by the DfT was due to end in May 2026, which has recently been extended to May 2028.
“The council is currently exploring how the extension will be delivered and looking at agreeing these changes.”
Lime declined to comment.
The trial period allows the scooters to be used across Salford city centre including Blackfriars and Trinity, the University of Salford, MediaCity, Pendleton, and up to Salford Royal Hospital.
Parts of Eccles and Pendleton were recently added to the trial electric-scooter zone too.
Lime’s website explains that since the scooters were brought to Salford, they have saved ‘over 600 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere’, which is the ‘equivalent of avoiding over 190,000 car journeys.’
The Lime scooters are in use in around 230 cities across 30 different countries in total.
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