The electric vehicle charging infrastructure plan seeks to improve the network across the county.
At next week's meeting (Tuesday 12 October), Conservative led Wiltshire Council's Cabinet will consider approving a new electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure plan, which looks to improve the council's current EV charging network and work with local communities to increase the number of charging points in the county.
The council currently has 76 EV charging points (38 charging units, two points on each) in its car parks, which are operated and managed by BP Pulse. Many of these were installed several years ago, and now the technology is advancing quickly, there is an opportunity to replace the old units with modern, faster chargers.
To ensure there is a more reliable - and widespread - charging network in Wiltshire, the electric vehicle charging infrastructure plan seeks to improve the network across the county, by replacing the non-working chargers and those in high use areas.
It also proposes the offering of grants to support parish, town and city councils to provide more charging points in council-operated car parks. The plan also sets the foundations for the national move to electric vehicles, which will then be built upon in the Local Transport Plan in 2023.
Conservative Cllr Dr Mark McClelland, Cabinet Member for Transport, said:
We know that some of the charging points in our car parks are not working, and we know how frustrating that can be for electric vehicle owners. That's why we're bringing forward this plan to replace the council's current network with modern chargers and to work with local communities to help more people make the switch to electric vehicles.
If this plan is approved by Cabinet, we can move forward with the tender process and people can expect to see new machines in our car parks and more charging points installed throughout Wiltshire over future years.
To find out more about EV charge points in Wiltshire, people should visit our website. To read the Cabinet report, people should go online.
