I AM starting a campaign to encourage electric cars in Bristol. They are by far the cleanest form of engine-driven vehicle, the cleanest, of course, being the human-driven variety, the pedal bike.

Electric vehicles need electricity. This may seem a statement of the blindingly obvious, but Bristol has a long way to go before the handful of us with all-electric cars have the infrastructure to support our investment in the environment.

Paris and London are now competing for which city can best serve the needs of cyclists and electric car users, with Paris taking the lead with a huge investment in both.

One of my most frequent journeys is to and from Temple Meads, but if my journey or work are extended to require me to leave the car uncharged for a couple of days, I am stranded, as there are no charging facilities at the station.

I fantasise about a photo-voltaic roof to give me a trickle charge to top it up throughout the day, but the most helpful thing that Network Rail could do is to provide some charging points and small parking spaces for half-sized cars – preferably with half-sized parking costs!

Of course, for my car to be considered zero-carbon in use, I should always charge it from renewable sources. This I am planning, with solar power from the roof of the Tobacco Factory, in the meantime opting for "green electricity" from Western Power. The enormous expanse of the station roof gives plenty of potential for running the station from such a source.

Bristol now has the opportunity to be the brightest spark among the provincial cities by leading the way alongside its investment in cycling. The first move must be to provide charging points at key locations across the city as is now happening in London. I believe the only city-owned one is at the Create Centre at the Cumberland Basin.

Amazingly, it only costs about £1 (which, of course, is worth next to nothing now anyway) to fully charge my car to go up to 40 miles – the big cost is the capital one as production numbers are so low. Smart has only produced 100 of such cars on an experimental basis, of which there are a small clutch in and around Bristol.

Of course, such cars are far from carbon-zero in their production, the main issue being the manufacture and disposal of the batteries, which are in their infancy in terms of their real potential and environmental performance. This is a great opportunity for the UK to take a lead in this growing technology – and a much more worthwhile investment than propping up an ailing motor car industry, which should be left to sink or swim on its own.

So let's look forward to a time when to use an electric vehicle is the norm – with many of them available within community car clubs, as we are currently proposing at the Greenbank Chocolate Factory project and elsewhere. Let's look forward to a time when the roofs of Bristol are powering much of the electricity requirement of the city, and mostly, let's look forward to a quieter, healthier and safer city that is not devastated by the internal combustion engine and all its consequences.

Let us start at our railway stations – and do all we can to encourage Network Rail to make its sustainable travel even more sustainable. I, for one, shall be knocking on their door.