Council’s million-pound pledge for more electric vehicle chargers

The borough's first on-street electric vehicle chargers will be switched on in Basingstoke this spring as Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council begins driving forward its plan to spend over £1 million on new charging points across the borough in the next three years.

This supports the council's climate emergency declaration and its ambition to encourage more people to swap to a zero-emission vehicle to cut carbon and make the borough's air cleaner.

To make it easier for people without driveways to charge an electric vehicle near their home, the borough council is fully funding the first phase of a joint project with Hampshire County Council, which is responsible for on-street charging points, to create new chargers in residential areas across the borough.

Building on its track record of installing electric vehicle chargers in its car parks, the borough council will also fund further new charging points at its depots for recharging its electric operational vehicles and explore opportunities for new chargers at council-owned community centres.

The first phase of the councils' project will begin in Basingstoke as five lampposts across Abbey Road in Popley, Schubert Road in Brighton Hill and Culver Road in Brookvale and Kings Furlong are fitted with vehicle charging points.

Quicker and easier to install than stand-alone units thanks to the lampposts' existing power supplies, they will be capable of recharging an electric car overnight or during the working day, depending on the vehicle and its battery capacity.

Blink will operate these chargers and people will be able to use them by downloading the Blink Charging app on their phone from the Apple or Android store.

The borough council's Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Infrastructure Cllr Andy Konieczko said: "I have an ambition for us to be a leader in installing electric vehicle chargers and to see at least one charging point in every ward in our borough within the next 12 months. We urgently need to tackle climate change, and I believe that the borough council has to play its role in making that happen. Our funding means extra charging points can now come forward quicker to give more people in Basingstoke and Deane the confidence they need to swap to a zero-emission vehicle as a greener and more sustainable form of transport.

"This first phase of on-street chargers is an encouraging start and we recognise that there's a lot more to do. We're working with the county council to make sure that this important project maintains its strong momentum and we will also continue with our programme of installing rapid chargers in council-owned car parks."

With the first phase of installations under their joint project about to get under way, the councils will continue to work together to bring forward further on-street vehicle chargers across Basingstoke and Deane.

The project's future charging points, like those installed under its first phase, will be created in locations with limited off-street parking that are within five minutes' walk of homes and have an existing power supply to connect to. They will also be in areas where the demand for chargers is already high or is likely to be higher in the near future, based on technical assessments and requests from residents to the county council.

Recognising the limited amount of on-street parking in some areas, residents in any type of vehicle will be able to park next to these new chargers, though people will be encouraged to leave the spaces free for drivers who need to recharge their car.

More information about the borough council's work to create new electric vehicle charging points is at www.basingstoke.gov.uk/vehicle-charging-point

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