Peterborough has been branded the most difficult place in the country to be without a car. The study by the Campaign for Better Transport placed the Cambridgeshire city behind 28 other British locations.

While Peterborough has good rail links, travel within the city was deemed challenging without a car on the 2014 Car Dependency Scorecard.

Critics of Peterborough's city planners say it was built with the car at its heart, rather than public transport.

Mark Speed of Peterborough City Council countered the criticisms by saying that "400,000" additional bus journeys were taken last year, but did concede that: "Peterborough was built at a time when car was seen as the most-desirable mode of transport.”

Cities that saw rapid expansion during the 1960s and 1970s did not fare well in the study; alongside Peterborough, Colchester and Milton Keynes languish at the foot of the car dependency table.

Of Colchester the researchers said: “While the historic centre is densely packed and walkable, more-recent development has been spread more sparsely around the edges of the city.”

The best cities to move around in without a car were London, Manchester and Liverpool.

And so it seems the car is still the star in some key East of England locations, as well as many other UK cities.

Are you one of our breakdown cover customers in Peterborough, Colchester or Milton Keynes? Are you surprised by the results?

See where your city ranked in the table below.

 

1.London

2.Manchester

3.Liverpool

4. Brighton &Hove

5.Newcastle upon Tyne

6.Cambridge

7.Bristol

8.Birmingham

9.Southampton

10.Nottingham

11.Leicester

12.Stockport

13.Norwich

14.Luton

15.Sheffield

16.Plymouth

17.Leeds

18.Sunderland

19.Coventry

20.Gateshead

21.Northampton

22.Dudley

23.Derby

24.Bradford

25.Wigan

26.Swindon

27.Milton Keynes

28.Colchester

29.Peterborough