No, this is not another protest at BMW's handling of the Rover sale but a safety test of the German company's new hybrid car-motorbike, the C1.

Expect to see corporate real estate executives whizzing up and down the M4 on them soon, following a visit by the Thames Valley Branch of NACORE to BMW's UK headquarters in Bracknell last week.

Welcomed by Ron young, BMW's real estate facility manager, the group of 45 had an exclusive preview of the brand new C1 city bike.

Guest speaker George Kingston, head of transport and planning at Bracknell Forest Borough Council, described the difficulties of complying with Government directives on transport and the role of the car in an area where the current public transport infrastructure struggles to keep up with development. Responding to questioning, he agreed that, while a monorail system might be an answer in some areas, he felt that non-fixed link solutions should be looked at first.

NACORE delegates visited the 27,000 sq m computerised warehouse behind the building, where nightly deliveries of parts from Munich are logged and redistributed to all the UK and Irish BMW dealerships. Each item is barcoded and then re-coded on arrival so that it can be tracked to its final destination.

Richard Byatt