Thanks for responses, Still unsure what constitutes low mileage and short journey? I do approx 10,000 miles p.a. in this car and most journeys are between 1 and 20 miles. Does this mean I should opt for the petrol despite poorer acceleration and economy?

DPFs are only an issue on diesels when a petrol would have been a better choice for other reasons, ie for low mileage users.

in other words DPFs are only an issue when they cause problems.....hmm.......

No - they aren't a problem when owners are doing enough miles to justify a diesel with or without a DPF.

Some people are buying diesels even when their annual mileage is low and it's these that are much more likely to get DPF problems because they aren't driven long enough or hard enough to do passive regeneration.