Twenty new electric vehicle charging points are to be installed in rural areas in Richmondshire.
It comes after the county council succeeded in a bid for £2.2m of funding for a network of 140 charging points across the county.
The council’s proposals will be financed from part of a £20m national pilot. The money will come from the Government and industry.
Each area of the county will get 20 chargers.
North Yorkshire devised a scheme to install chargepoints alongside battery storage units, which will be charged by solar panels, making them environmentally friendly.
Officials say the technology has been chosen which is sympathetic to the rural locations where they will be installed.
The scheme is called the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) pilot scheme and in North Yorkshire it will see residential chargepoints in both on-street locations and larger petrol-station type charging hubs.
In addition to giving drivers without home chargers the confidence to switch to electric, the county council hopes the new network will help to reduce “range anxiety” among existing electric vehicle users by helping to ensure motorists are never far from a chargepoint.
The county council’s executive member for climate change, Cllr Greg White, said: “The switch to electric vehicles is necessary as North Yorkshire moves towards becoming carbon zero, but the rural nature of the county presents some significant challenges.
“We worked hard to come up with an innovate scheme which will begin to provide the answers motorists need if they are to have the confidence to go electric.
“The Government clearly saw the merit in our plans and we are delighted that we will now be able to press ahead with this work. It is an important step in our plans to ensure the county has an EV charging network which can meet everyone’s needs.”
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I am sure the 2 planned for Nuns close car park will really encourage people to switch to electric vehicles ….. not
Why not?
EVs are massively cheaper to run than fossilised cars. Once a good second hand market is established, EVs will be within everyone’s price range.
This development will help speed that process up so all will benefit.
EVs are not cheaper to run on current high electricity tariffs
Not true with the new electricity tariff
About time, but there need to be more….many more.
Three years ago Richmondshire District Council put £250k aside to do this. Where has that gone ?
I bet in three years it still won’t be done. The new Victoria Garage was supposed to fit an electric charge unit as part of planning permission but nothing there. I’m afraid the councillors are not looking after us, you only see them once in five years and promises and not action but they will take £6k a year plus expenses quite happily
I hope your prediction is wrong, Paul – though you’re right about the delays and the lack of engagement. For example, there should have been a planning condition before Lidl opened, requiring two or more ‘slow’ chargers to be put in the supermarket car park.
I’m not sure where the poster above got the information that there would be two charge-points in Nuns Close. The RDC press release in November 2020 said: “The plans are to install four at Nuns Close in Richmond”. Those plans may have changed, I suppose.
What’s the tariff to charge?. Domestic electricity tariffs are now so high the energy cost per mile to charge an electric car is about the same as a petrol car so the extra expense of an electric car is never recouped.