Image credit: BBC
Looks like UK councils have better things to do than worry about providing charging points for a few electric car owners. There are no council-run filling stations after all.
Just five councils across England have taken advantage of a government backed scheme for funding electric car charge points, ministers have revealed.
Jesse Norman and Claire Perry, respectively ministers for transport and climate change, have written to local authorities urging them to take advantage of the On-Street Residential Charge point Scheme, which was launched in 2016, reports Utility Week.
The Department for Transport (DfT) scheme offers up to 75 per cent of the cost of procuring and installing charge points. Around £4.5 million is left unclaimed from the scheme which the DfT claims could fund thousands of charge points.
The scheme is designed to provide charging facilities for the approximately one-third of homes that lack off-street parking, which makes overnight charging ‘extremely difficult’.
Perry and Norman, who is a former junior energy minister, have written to council leaders urging them to take up the option.
Norman said: “Millions of homes in the UK do not have off-street parking, so this funding is important to help local councils ensure that all their residents can take advantage of this revolution.
“Charge points can be anything from new points popping up on streets to adapting existing lampposts to make the best use of space.”
Responding to the criticism, Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s transport spokesman, said that the scheme was inadequately funded and that councils faced many other budgetary pressures following the withdrawal of government support.
“They (councils) cannot take on the role of replacing petrol stations. Any new responsibilities to ensure there is sufficient electric car charging infrastructure must be matched with adequate funding. Long term this must be a role for the private sector.”
Continued here.
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January 16, 2018 at 06:09AM
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