There's been quite a bit of debate on here in the past about mounting bull bars, and other stuff like spare wheels on the front of your van, such as
this thread.
My understanding of the
regulations, which is admittedly limited, is that they don't specifically prohibit fitting stuff to the front of a vehicle, but the recommendations after 2007 are that you should generally avoid doing so, and in any case avoid fitting anything that cannot be shown to comply with safety standards:
It is not illegal for vehicles to be fitted with bull bars, although the department would not recommend their fitment unless it has been shown, through compliance with specified safety standards, that they do not pose an additional risk of injury to pedestrians or other vulnerable road users.
There are no plans for legislation to require bull bars that are already fitted to be removed. However, since 25 May 2007, it has been an offence for bull bars that have not been approved as compliant with those safety standards to be sold. Approved devices will carry an indelible ‘e’ mark (for example: e1 01 1471).
As far as I know there were no OEM options for mounting a spare wheel on the front of these vans, which means if you did fit one it wouldn't have been safety tested, and so would be contrary to these recommendations, which would be difficult to explain away in the event of an accident. The chances are you would also need to let your insurance company know that you were fitting it, and they would probably take a dim view of the idea.
Have you thought about using the luggage rack on the roof, or maybe fitting some kind of rear rack or carrier, such as a
Bak-Rak?
, it’s got to make some difference to cooling I expect
