Volkswagen is the latest car manufacturer to launch a scrappage scheme aimed at taking older, polluting cars off the roads.

The German car giant, said owners of older vehicles in the Euro 1-4 classifications will be able to get between £1,800 and £6,000 when trading in their cars to purchase a newer VW vehicle.

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The offer, which runs from today (1 September) until 31 December 2017, will apply to all the brands in the VW stable, including Audi and Seat. Customers opting to purchase electric and hybrid vehicles will be entitled to larger discounts, VW added, as the scrappage discount could be combined with existing government grants.

However, the offer falls short of a similar scheme the car manufacturer has introduced in Germany, where customers can get a discount of up to £9,000.

A number of other car manufacturers, including Vauxhall, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes, have launched similar schemes this year, while Ford followed suit last month.

The schemes are also understood to be aimed at reviving sales in the flagging UK car market, which recorded a 9% drop in July amid uncertainty over Brexit and a squeeze on lending. The decline came after years of consistent growth and the new car market is expected to fall by 2.6% over the course of 2017.

VW's decision to launch a scrappage scheme comes two years after the company became embroiled in a high profile scandal related to its emissions test, which sparked a global backlash and multiple lawsuits.

At the beginning of the year, VW agreed to pay the US Justice Department $4.3bn (£3.3bn), the largest fine the American government has handed a carmaker. Six of its executives were also indicted for their role in the diesel emissions scandal that has engulfed the German carmaker for 16 months.

The penalty came after VW admitted it installed software into diesel engines on nearly 600,000 vehicles in the US that allowed the engines to turn on pollution controls during government tests and switch them off in real-world driving.

The car maker has recalled a combined 11 million vehicles worldwide, including 1.2 million in Britain.