A record number of diesel cars are still clogging up Dorset's roads, figures show.

Figures from the Department for Transport have revealed that there were 91,701 diesel cars and 34,478 vans registered in the county last year totalling 37 per cent of all vehicles on the county's roads.

This is an increase of 1,195 (around 2.6 per cent) on 2016 while there were 308,966 vehicles were registered in the county last year, 3,123 more than in 2016.

The increase comes after the U​K government announced proposals to ban the sale of diesel cars from 2040 and following concerns raised about diesel technology following 2015's Volkswagen scandal, in which the German manufacturer was found to be cheating emissions tests

It also signals a remarkable turnaround in the popularity of diesel, with Gordon Brown introducing tax breaks on new diesel-powered vehicles as recently as 2001.

The government says that diesel cars also release toxic nitrous oxide (NO2) fumes, a harmful contributor to air pollution which causes around 40,000 premature deaths every year are linked to the country's poor air quality and is encouraging people to switch to greener alternatives such as electrical vehicles.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “These latest figures show just how entrenched diesel cars are in our society.

“It also illustrates that even if the dramatic drop in sales of new diesel cars continues it will take several years before the size of the overall diesel fleet is significantly dented.

“It’s not just diesel cars that are at record numbers. The van fleet has just hit a new high of 3.9 million and almost all of these will be powered by diesel.

"The increasing age of cars partly reflects the build quality and reliability of modern cars. But while in our generally throw-away society keeping things for as long as possible can be seen as positive, it also means that some of the older, most polluting cars might be with is for longer than we might now like."

There were 1,780,051 diesel cars and vans registered across the South West in 2017, and 16.8 million across the UK - an increase of 3 per cent on 2016.