First of new electric vehicle charging points goes live
The first of more than 100 new electric vehicle charging points being installed in public car parks across Kirklees is now live.
Where is the new charging point?
The new charging point, installed at Oldgate car park in Huddersfield town centre, are part of a West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) initiative to encourage the use of low emissions vehicles.
WYCA, supported by the Local Transport Fund, is installing up to 88 electric vehicle charging points in West Yorkshire – 17 of these sites are in Kirklees. This is part of the £3 million-plus scheme to help improve the county’s air quality
Carbon neutral by 2038
This will support our ambitious plans to make the borough carbon neutral by 2038.
Kirklees at the forefront of electric vehicle infrastructure provision
As part of this plan a £1million council investment – approved by Cabinet on 20 January 2020 – is set to put Kirklees at the forefront of electric vehicle infrastructure provision. It will see five new rapid charge points and 80-100 new fast charge points installed in public car parks and on-street to support residents and visitors to move towards electric vehicles.
This will add to Kirklees’ current network which has three rapid chargers and 22 slow to fast chargers in the public domain.
Supporting our Air Quality Action Plan
It will also support 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.
Councillor Naheed Mather, Cabinet Member for Greener Kirklees, said:
“Our responsibility to tackle climate change is something we take very seriously.
We have a strong an ambitious plan to make Kirklees carbon neutral by 2038 and a part of this is to invest in greener forms of transport.
If we want more people to drive electric vehicles we need to make sure the right resources are in place and this is the first of many new electric vehicle charging points coming to Kirklees.
We can only tackle climate change with everyone on-board so I urge people to read our plans and think about what you can do to improve our climate.”
Register to use the network
People can register to use the network online where they can also locate their nearest West Yorkshire chargepoint and find updates on the opening of new chargepoints.
A collaboration between West Yorkshire Combined Authority and its partner local authorities
The scheme is a collaboration between West Yorkshire Combined Authority and its partner local authorities – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield councils. Following its successful bid for £2 million funding from the Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), West Yorkshire Combined Authority appointed Leeds-based ENGIE to install, own and operate the new charging points.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the partnering local authorities are also providing a further £1.2 million of match funding for the scheme.
I’m a Kirklees resident, and have been an EV user for over 10 years. I also use a waterproof 13A socket for charging the car and it works fine. Fortunately I have a driveway and so can always park the car next to the charge point overnight.
As part of the Holmfirth Climate Emergency Action plan we are looking for local on-road EV parking where we can help provide on-road charging. We’re wanting to get some pilot areas going to demonstrate the possibilities (and issues!)
The challenge is providing a way of getting an extension lead to a car safely without compromising pavement safety. This has been done in Oxford with a Pavement Cable Channel.
For Council tenants, asking for waterproof outside sockets and off street parking is the lowest cost way of enabling EV uptake! Best of luck. Matthew Tulley.
As a resident of mirfield and an ev user, I am curious to know when the charge point in Mirfield center is due to go live.
Also as a council Tennant, I am interested in any plans for home charge points for council properties in the near future, or even an outside weather proof socket would be helpful for those using the cars plug in charge leads.
At the moment I am using a caravan hook up extension lead to enable me to charge my car on the roadside over night and as you can imagine, this is not exactly ideal, especially when winter approaches.
At the moment I would need to pay and get permission for a driveway just to make me eligible for a government grant towards a charge point fitting and this also depends on weather or not both the government and the local council approves of a charge point on a residential council property.
Though I do not hold much confidence for my own situation being greatly improved, I do feel the questions are worth consideration from a standpoint of future tenancies in the kirklees area.
If we are all to be looking forward with the intent to change our vehicles to electric, I see situations like this becoming more common in years to come.