I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it: I have been test-driving nothing but mid-sized MPVs recently. It might be payback for those months earlier in the year when I gorged myself on a string of Ferraris, Aston Martins and Bentleys.

As a contraceptive, the compact MPV beats anything you can buy at Boots. If the National Health Service really wants to cut costs and improve services, it should start by forcing family-planning clinics to wallpaper their surgeries with posters of these insipid machines. Who would want four or more children if it meant having to drive around in a Ford Galaxy? Well, Tony Blair I suppose.

Because their very existence depends on their ability to cram a large number of people into a very small space — a difficult and expensive operation in car design terms — and then be sold at an affordable price, MPVs are necessarily pared down.

Manufacturers have no choice but to slash the budgets in other areas. Style goes out of the window, interior comfort follows not far behind and driving pleasure is minimal to nil. What’s left isn’t so much a car as a nursery on wheels — something that looks after the every wish of your pint-sized passengers and leaves you in the driving seat as a sort of combined nanny and taxi driver.

Of course, it serves you right for allowing yourself to become outnumbered by your children in the first place. Given that you’re stuck with them and can’t trade them in for cheaper or quieter models, you’re forced to accept that an MPV is the sensible thing to have.

While a seven-seater 4x4 such as a Volvo XC90 or Land Rover Defender might do the same job, not everybody wants or can afford that option. The logic, then, is unpleasant but inescapable. Why restrict yourself to the fixed boot and immovable seats of a conventional family car? A people carrier can ferry people but it can also transport Ikea flatpacks and bedding plants from the garden centre. You can load up a couple of hundredweight of sharp sand and a few paving slabs to lay a patio. SUVs can service the school run and your place in the country. Their flexibility and ease of use are why MPV sales in Britain have leapt from 20,125 in 1995 to 126,077 last year. That many people can’t be wrong, even though they may not be boasting about their choice.

How do you pick the best of a bad bunch? That’s easy: Ford’s C-Max is based on the Focus and is quite good to drive, so there’s a chance you’ll actually like it. Unfortunately it has only five seats, which will be no good when the little darlings want to bring a friend or two home from school. The new Mercedes B-class suffers from the same seat problem and further compounds its limitations by being arrogantly expensive and disappointing to drive.

At least Vauxhall’s all-new Zafira has seven seats, so the brood will have plenty of space, but you’ll have to put up with something that combines the visual appeal and point-to-point thrills of Christmas shopping in Slough.

I liked the idea of Honda’s new FR-V, not least because its innovative 3+3 seating means there is no third row of seats, so your children won’t be the first things to get hit if you’re rear-ended. The execution is a little lacking, however. It’s cramped when sitting three across, there is no seventh seat and it fails to match Honda’s usually high standards of driving dynamics.

But, heaven be praised, an answer appears to be upon all those with more children than sense. And it comes in the unlikely and quite staggeringly bland form of this new Mazda5.

Yes, it’s not much to look at. In fact I’d say it’s even duller than a Zafira, which is some achievement. Yet within those yawnsome lines it is quietly impressive.

For a start it has sliding doors, allowing terrific access to the rear cabin and enabling your children to climb in and out when parked in tight places without clobbering the car parked next to you. Look inside and there appear to be three rows of two seats, but in fact the nearside seat in the middle row folds out into the centre to create a seventh seat. This extra seat is small, but as an occasional perch to be used for local journeys it’s just fine.

()In addition, all but the driver’s seat fold flat to create a vast interior cavern, and the middle row both slides and reclines. And for those people who define an MPV’s abilities by its number of storage facilities, the Mazda5 has an astonishing 45 cubbyholes in total, not to mention 10 cupholders.

But I’ve not told you the best bit yet. You’ll have guessed by now that for sheer practicality the Mazda5 is at or near the top of the class; what you may not know, however, is that it shares its chassis with none other than the Ford C-Max, hitherto the only mid-sized MPV that’s any good to drive.

The Mazda5 is available now in 1.8 and 2 litre petrol form with prices starting at a competitive £14,300 and £16,300 respectively, with a further two diesel engines starting at £15,900 coming on stream later in the year. The petrol engines are smooth and the 143bhp 2 litre unit is strong enough to make the extra outlay seem worthwhile. All those seats and sliding doors make this quite a heavy car and you’ll need the extra power if it is not to feel entirely gutless.

Besides, when an MPV is this good on the corners you’ll want standards to be maintained on the straights. It’s no sports car, but with sharp steering, good grip and excellent body control there’s more here for the discerning driver than its dowdy appearance would ever suggest.

Whether you can face driving around in a car that looks this dull, of course, is another matter. Then again, if you had any choice in the matter I don’t suppose you’d be looking for a mid-sized MPV in the first place.

So all I’m saying is this: if you can buy a normal car, do. But if the spectre of mid-sized MPV ownership now confronts you, you could do worse than this.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model Mazda5 2.0 Sport
Engine type Four cylinders, 1999cc
Power/Torque 143bhp @ 6000rpm / 136 lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel/CO2 34.5mpg (combined cycle) / 198g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 10.8sec / Top speed: 122mph
Price £16,300
Verdict The best of a boring bunch
Rating 4/5

THE OPPOSITION

Model Honda FR-V 2.0i-VTEC Sport £16,530
For No one has to sit in the boot, Honda engineering
Against Cramped when sitting three abreast

Model Vauxhall Zafira Life 2.2i 16v Direct £16,845
For Seven-seat interior, good ride and refinement
Against Dull to look at, dull to drive