The Lib Dems would like to hear from residents if they've considered buying an electric vehicle only to be deterred by the non existence of electric vehicle charging points in the Rochford District?
Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Points in the Rochford DIstrict = ZERO (0)
The pro's and con's of electric vehicle (EV) ownership was recently reported by ITV's Tonight programme.
As reported.....
In 2016, the government allocated £6 million to a scheme where local councils can apply for funding for residential on-street charging points.
Kensington and Chelsea council are one of the local authorities that have signed up to the scheme. They are converting council lamp posts into charging points for residents. In the programme, Ginny Buckley visits Kensington to try out a lamp post charging point first hand. Residents can join the charging scheme by purchasing a cable, which has an inbuilt meter allowing them to plug into any of the Council’s lamp post chargers, 24 hours a day. Charging at lamp posts is being rolled out in 12 London boroughs.
Only 24 councils have so far applied for funding from the government's On-Street Residential Charge point Scheme. Geographically, out of these councils:
- 14 are in the South
- Three are in the North
- Three are in the Midlands
- Three are in Scotland
- One is in Wales
Tonight issued a Freedom of Information request to all local authorities to find out more about how councils are approaching charging infrastructure to residents.
We asked each council whether they have plans to apply for the government’s On Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme? Out of the 257 that responded:
- Only 7% had applied already
- 17% are planning to apply
- 51% have no current plans to apply
- 25% were unable to confirm whether they plan to apply
We asked responding councils who have already applied for the scheme for details of how much money they have been granted, and how much progress has been made. The responses confirmed that a total of at least £1,709,597 of government money has been granted to councils through the scheme, and at least 69 on street charging points have so far been installed through the scheme.
Tonight also asked all councils who have not applied for the scheme whether they have any plans to install any residential on street charging points in the future at all. Out of the 257 councils:
- 28% do have plans to install residential on street charging points
- 40% do not have any current plans to install residential on street charging points
- 25% were unsure or unable to confirm
Our FOI results also show that the total number of residential on street charging points installed by local authorities that responded (both through the scheme and not) is 1,265.
We asked all local authorities how many residential on street charging points they plan to have installed by 2020. The results show that councils plan to have installed a total of at least 4163 charging points by 2020, but this is based on the responses of only 19% of the councils, as 81% of the councils were unable to provide a number.
As usual please leave your comments below!
Isn’t the technology of home chargers taking away the need for public charging points, most home electrical wiring can cope with car rechargers so the need for public points is not so critical just a thought Shouldn’t the car manufacturers and the energy companies be taking the lead and not Councils ?
If you were travelling from Southend to say Bristol, you’d need to recharge. You couldn’t just pull up on someone’s driveway ? Secondly, home chargers are overnight, not rapid chargers and lastly in order to reduce air pollution councils should be encouraging people to change to cleaner modes of transport.
Agreed that you need charging but why is it the responsibility of public bodies. Tesla etc should pay for it and electric car owners should plan their journey
It’s infrastructure….. we need to get this rolled out.
No good if you live in a flat or a terraced house without off street parking