By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
There are concerns over electric vehicle owners being hit with parking charges while waiting for the cars to be charged.
The issue was raised at a Gloucestershire County Council meeting today as civic chiefs were given an update on the rollout of electric vehicle charge points.
More than 120 charge points have been installed across 33 locations in the county as part of Shire Hall’s on street residential charge point scheme.
But questions were asked at the environment scrutiny committee on July 8 about what was being done to ensure motorists are not inadvertently given a parking charge while waiting for their vehicle to charge up.
Cheltenham councillor Martin Horwood (LD, Leckhampton with Warden Hill) asked highways chiefs if they were working to “iron out” the problem.
“There have been reports of people not being able to stay long enough to charge their cars without getting stung with car parking charges for overstaying,” the nature, climate and waste reduction cabinet member said.
“[This] is clearly a complete nonsense. Are we trying to iron that out and get rid of that.”
Director of economy, environment and infrastructure Colin Chick said he would like to see the evidence for that. “I’ve not seen the evidence,” he said.
Cllr Horwood told him to ask the spa town’s MP Max Wilkinson. Officers said they had heard about it happening in car parks but not on streets.
Shire Hall announced last month that it is investing £620,000 in 1000 charging points around the county adding to the privately owned points already in place in car parks and petrol stations.
The roll out of the first 25 double charge points will start in Gloucester and Cheltenham later this financial year.
The roll out of electric vehicle charging points would give residents more options to help reduce carbon emissions from transport, improving air quality, council chiefs say.
The roll out of on-street charging points as well as a wider strategy to create EV infrastructure will encourage residents to make the switch by giving them more charging availability.
A major barrier to people buying hybrid and electric vehicles is the charging network.
And 30 per cent of households are unable to charge a vehicle off street, they say.
As such the government is prioritising 75 per cent grant funding to councils to invest in on street chargers in residential areas.