Climate activists claim they have let down tyres of SUVs parked in the Didsbury area of south Manchester overnight, leaving notes on vehicles targeted saying: "It's not personal - it's your car."
The Manchester Evening News has been sent an anonymous email from a campaign group calling itself 'The Tyre Extinguishers' which claimed 26 so-called sports utility vehicles were hit.
On Twitter, the group claimed vehicles in Bacup, Lancashire, were also targeted overnight, together with SUVs in Wood Green, London, and vehicles in Paris, France. It's not known whether any of them were electric vehicles.
The M.E.N. reported on the group in March this year, when angry motorists hit out after tyres of SUVs parked on streets around Burton Road in West Didsbury were targeted in a similar manner. One of the vehicles affected was an electric car parked in Beaufort Avenue.
One victim said at the time: "It's not just an inconvenience. My wife's pregnant and I need to get her to hospital at some point. If I can't do that because my car tyres have been let down, I've got to call an ambulance which takes that off of the road for somebody else, which is frankly dangerous and irresponsible."
The M.E.N. has contacted Greater Manchester Police for further comment and to ask the force whether it is investigating. We have also contacted the group itself for details about exact locations and to ask whether any of the cars targeted were electric.
One note, apparently left on an SUV in Bacup and posted to Twitter, said: "One of your tyres have been let down. It's not personal. It's your car. Look up Tyre Extinguishers."
The email to the M.E.N. - which we have highlighted to police - said 26 SUVs were 'disarmed' in Didsbury overnight - 'done by letting the air out of one or more tyres using a lentil in the tyre cap'.
The group says it is operating under the aim to make it impossible to own an SUV in urban areas of the UK, claiming they are unnecessary 'luxury emissions' that contribute to air pollution and pose a danger on roads.
It says on its website: "SUVs and 4x4s are a disaster for our health, our public safety and our climate. Bigger and bigger cars are dominating our towns and cities, and all so a privileged few can flaunt their wealth.
"Because governments and politicians have failed to protect us from this danger, we must protect ourselves. We want to make it impossible to own a huge polluting 4x4 in the world's urban areas.
"We do this by deflating the tyres of these massive, unnecessary vehicles, causing inconvenience and expense for their owners."
The group goes on to claim that because SUVs are bigger and heavier than other cars, they are 'more polluting and use more fuel'. Hundreds of vehicles in affluent parts of London, Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool and Brighton have already been targeted.
SUVs have grown hugely in popularity in recent years, to the point they’re now one of the bestselling new car designs.
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