Council gets green light for electric car charging points across Derbyshire Dales and High Peak

The council has secured more than £200,000 to install electric charging points for up to 40 cars and vans split across five sites in the Derbyshire Dales District Council and High Peak Borough Council areas in Ashbourne, Bakewell, Buxton, Glossop and Matlock. Up to eight vehicles can charge up at each site at any one time.

Derbyshire County Council’s cabinet member for economic development and regeneration councillor Tony King said: “With demand for electrical vehicles rising, we want to do all we can to help more Derbyshire residents make the switch to more environmentally-friendly motoring.

“We worked with the district and borough councils to identify sites for electric vehicle charge points and purposely chose those which are close to residential areas where there is limited off-street parking. The sites chosen are also within or very close to the Peak District which is popular with visitors.

“We’re committed to working with other organisations and the whole community to tackle climate change and achieve zero carbon emissions throughout Derbyshire by 2050.

“This is just one of the things we are doing to help achieve this goal and once the charging points are in place, we hope more local residents will be encouraged to switch to electric vehicles, benefiting from reduced motoring costs such as fuel and road tax and improving local air quality.”

The scheme, delivered by the Energy Saving Trust, is being funded by the UK Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles which contributed £145,000 and the charging point provider BP Chargemaster, which contributed £55,154.

The council intends to bid for further money to introduce electric vehicle charging points in other parts of Derbyshire in the future. To charge up, motorists would need to register and would be issued with a smartcard which is then swiped against a machine to unlock the electricity supply. The initial batch are expected to be in place by the end of March.