Plans for new electric vehicle charging points across Arun

The strategy was developed by West Sussex County Council after the government announced the sale of petrol and diesel cars would be banned from 2040 – and possibly as early as 2032.

With a national target to be carbon neutral by 2050 already set, the need for enough infrastructure to cope with this next generation of vehicles became something of a priority.

During the council’s first online meeting on Wednesday, leader Dr James Walsh said: “I think it’s a vital strategy if we’re going to achieve the shift away from oil burning vehicles and reducing pollution.

“One of the effects of the coronavirus epidemic is we’ve all seen the benefit of reducing vehicle and aircraft pollution in the clearer air that we’ve breathing, the clearer skies that we’re seeing, it’s really superb.”

Last year, the county council was told that 7,300 more charging points would be needed by 2030 to cater for the 161,000 electric vehicles expected to have taken to the roads.

Arun cabinet members were told the council had to provide a list of sites suitable for charging points before July, when the county council would start to invite tenders from firms interested in installing the network of charging points.

That process should be over by November and one company will be taken on to do the work, with a ‘limited’ number of charging points expected to be in place by the end of the first year – November 2021.

Gill Yeates, cabinet member for wellbeing, said:”We must back up our climate change emergency that we declared.

“This is one starting point and it seems a fairly easy way to do it, with relatively low risk to the council.”

One issue that was raised was the need to standardise the type of charging point used nationwide.

There are three types used by the various manufacturers and there were concerns drivers could find themselves in the 21st century equivalent of the Betamax versus VHS video recorder battle of the 1980s where one option rises to a monopoly leaving many people stuck with defunct technology.

Nat Slade, group head of technical services, assured members the strategy would be opting for the government-preferred plug, which is the most widely used.

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