Kirklees Together

Cabinet has agreed to invest £2million in electric vehicles and charging points as part of its new ambitious plan to make the borough completely carbon neutral by 2038.

What’s it all about?

Kirklees is set to be at the forefront of electric vehicle infrastructure provision after Cabinet approved a £1million investment to install five new rapid charge points and 80-100 new fast charge points in public car parks and on-street to support residents and visitors to move towards electric vehicles.

Approved by Cabinet on 20 January 2020, this will add to Kirklees’ current network which has three rapid chargers and 22 slow to fast chargers in the public domain, with a further 17 rapid chargers being installed in public locations by October 2021.

To support this further, parking will also be free for hybrid and electric vehicles across Kirklees in a bid to encourage more people to drive them.

Will new electric vehicles be added to our fleet?

Cabinet also agreed to invest a further £1million to add 50 new electric vehicles to its fleet. This will add to the five small electric vans, 20 electric and 30 hybrid pool cars we currently have in our fleet and the 24 small electric vans which are already in the process of being procured.

Reducing emissions in Kirklees

This comes after we passed a motion declaring a district-wide climate emergency in January 2019 and established the Climate Emergency Working Party (CEWP) to identify actions to reduce emissions in Kirklees.

An ambition for Kirklees to become a carbon neutral district

On 12 November Cabinet approved the CEWP’s action plan which sets out an ambition for Kirklees to become a carbon neutral district by at least 2038 – the deadline set by the West Yorkshire Combine Authority. This means environmental impact is considered as part of any decision made by the authority.

Some other key actions to help Kirklees reach this target include; boosting local woodland through the White Rose Forest Partnership, establishing a Kirklees Climate Commission and Kirklees Green Charter and to hold a Kirklees Youth Summit on climate change.

Improving recycling rates

We also aim to significantly improve recycling rates to reach the target of 55 per cent by 2025. With measures to improve recycling rates, in advance of a full review of the waste collection and disposal service.

Phase 1 of our climate emergency action plan

This all forms Phase 1 of our climate emergency action plan, Phase 2 will set out how Kirklees will become carbon neutral by 2038 and will be released next year.

Cllr Naheed Mather, Cabinet Member for Greener Kirklees, said:

“Climate change is already happening and action to address it is now an emergency. Cases of extreme weather such as heat waves and rainfall are having consequences already in Kirklees with issues such as moorland fires and flooding in particular affecting the region.

However, it’s not too late to prevent some of the very worst effects of climate change and we must act now. The council’s new long-term objective is to make Kirklees a carbon-neutral district by at least 2038.

To help Kirklees achieve this we are making much needed investments in greener forms of travel and are encouraging people to switch to electric vehicles.

We can only do this with everyone on-board so I urge people to read our plan and think about what you can do to improve our climate.”

Air Quality Action Plan

Supporting all of this work is our Air Quality Action Plan which identifies the action the authority will take to improve air quality in the borough between April 2019 and March 2024. This Action Plan was also approved by Cabinet in November.