Euro NCAP rates the 5 as a five-star car for occupant crash protection, making it one of the safest people carriers around. With six airbags as standard and various other safety systems on board the Mazda5 is safe as any car in its class.

The Mazda5 is about as versatile as compact people carriers get. Owners often like the idea of having a seven-seat car more than they actually use all seven seats, so this is more a six-seater with an occasional seventh seat that folds out of the second row armrest and left hand seat base. There’s a storage box in the right hand seat base. Both the second and third rows of seats in the Mazda5 fold flat, which avoids the hassle of having to remove seats, but it does mean you have to sacrifice some depth of luggage space.

With the third row of seats in place there is only room for a couple of soft bags or perhaps four supermarket carrier bags. However this is the class norm and cars like the Volkswagen Touran, Renault Grand Scenic, Toyota Corolla Verso and Vauxhall Zafira don’t offer any more space behind the seats. The optional electric doors are a neat gadget, but in certain situations, can be too time consuming to use.

The standard manual sliding doors are good enough.