News MBC – driving the way for electric cars
Maidstone Borough Council is steering the way forward for drivers of electric cars by installing Electric Vehicle Chargers (EVCs) in and around Maidstone town centre.
Union Street car park is the first to have an EVC unit installed providing two charging bays, with a further 18 bays being added across the borough in the next few weeks.
These will be at core Town Centre locations including:
- King Street Car Park
- Medway Street Car Park
- Mote Road Car Park
- Barker Road Car Park
- Wheeler Street Car Park
As part of MBCs bid to be a Business Rates Retention Pilot for 2019/20 (which offers 75% business rates retention), the Council announced in January that it would be installing ECV bays in prime town centre locations in off-street car parks.
MBC Chair of Strategic Planning, Sustainability and Transportation Committee – Cllr David Burton said:
“With the number of motorists using electric vehicles rising daily the need for Electric Vehicle charging bays has increased in line with that.These bays will help support the work MBC Parking Services has been carrying out on monitoring and reducing harmful emissions across the town centre, will encourage the adoption of Electric Vehicles and help our Air Quality Action Plan. The 18 bays will provide clear data on usage allowing MBC to expand the scheme in the future and monitor the medium-term impact EVs have on air quality using Parking Services’ portable air quality monitors.”
All chargers are 7kWh and will allow Maidstone’s motorists to recharge while they’re shopping or visiting the town. These will also support local-residents who wish to purchase electric vehicles but may previously have been unable to as they don’t have driveways to charge the vehicles from.
Customers will need to pay for their parking via the ‘POD Point’ smartphone app.
Following a full procurement, the contract to supply EVCs in the county town was awarded to APCOA Parking UK Ltd who are supplying POD Point chargers.