Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer review

Those in the back of the Astra ST have masses of room – more head room, even, than the Skoda Octavia, albeit with a touch less leg room. Even tall adults will be able to stretch out, and middle passengers will be a bit short of elbow room but otherwise comfortable enough. What is a disappointment is that the Astra doesn’t come with a central armrest in the back (as the vast majority of rivals do), and can’t be specced up with one, which might annoy some rear occupants.

The boot is a useful square shape, with a low load lip and a floor that’s flush with the lip so it’s easy to heave a bulky item in. It’s easy to fold the seats flat provided you do it from the side door, which leaves a long, extended loadbay that’ll let you load items up to 1.8-metres long. What does let the Astra down is that you have to pay extra for the ‘FlexOrganiser’ pack to get shopping bag hooks in the boot (standard on most rivals), and there’s no underfloor space or through-loading hatch in the 60/40 split rear bench, the latter of which would let you load something like a set of skis and still carry two passengers in the back. You also can’t get a fold-flat front passenger seat, as you can in a few rivals.

The lack of that central armrest in the back also means you don’t get any rear cupholders, which most rivals offer, and you don’t get pockets on the back of the front seats unless you go for SRi trim or above.

There is, at least, plenty of storage space up front with a good sized glovebox, two fixed cupholders that’ll take large takeaway mugs, and fairly deep door pockets.