THE UK used car market grew to 7.33 million units last year, nearly three times the size of the new car market.

An additional 442,514 used cars changed hands last year, compared to a 216,580 increase in the new car market, which celebrated a record year. It comes as Britain's car parc reached 27.7 million, or 1.1 cars per household, according to R L Polk, one of the world's largest specialists in automotive analysis.

There were 732,549 more cars on the road last year than during 2000, with 9% of cars less than one year old, although the average age of the entire car population is 7.3 years.