Government plans for 1,000 extra charging points around the country is not enough and will do little to encourage the public to opt for electric cars, the Greens have claimed.
The party’s transport spokesman said if the Government is serious about promoting electric vehicles the number of charging points needs to be nearer 10,000.
Patrick Costello also described the decision to delegate the installation and part of the cost of the charging points to local authorities is an excuse to get ministers “off the hook”.
He added: “The plans announced today by the government for 1,000 new electric vehicle charge points is a welcome small step in the right direction but it simply isn’t ambitious enough.
“The decision to mandate county councils to provide these points but to only provide 75% of the funding is going to seriously hamper the roll out. It is an example of the government setting up councils to fail and getting themselves off the hook for this failure.
“If we look to other countries around Europe you realise that adding 1,000 charge points is far below what is needed. If we look at Norway they already have 12,000 charge points. The government need to aim for the provision of 10,000 charge points.
“We also need to be creative in our ambition Where these points are is also vitally important - if we focus on off street charge point we can preserve the streets for walking, cycling and public transport. We should be looking at putting charge points in petrol stations and in places like supermarket car parks.
“We need a strategy to make that happen and we have suggested making one in ten spaces in supermarket car parks charge points. This would massively expand the provision of charge points nationally. Electric cars are only one part of the solution and we need to remember that.
“Ultimately this plan shows a lack of forethought for the infrastructure we need and a lack of ambition when it comes to meeting our climate targets.”
