Causeway Coast and Glens Council not involved in electric vehicle charging points scheme

Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council is one of just three council's in the North not signed up to a new fast electric vehicle charging points scheme.

The Faster Project is being rolled out in the North, South and Scotland and aims to address the lack of fast EV charging points in the countries.

Eight of the 11 councils in the North have signed up.

EV charging points are few and far between across Ireland and many of the existing points are slow charging and can take up to eight hours to charge. Rapid charging points can reduce that to just 30 minutes.

The council did not respond to questions about its exclusion from the project.

Independent County Derry MLA Claire Sugden said it is important that more fast charging points are installed in the area..

“I have had constituents come to me, remonstrating for more charge points to be installed,” Ms Sugden continued.

“Some have been forced to sell the electric vehicles they bought with the best of intentions because there simply isn’t the infrastructure to support their reasonable, practical, day-to-day use.

The majority of EV buyers install charging points at their homes but Ms Sugden says a lack of charging points prevents them from taking long journeys and creates barriers for tourism to the area.

The scheme represents a huge missed opportunity for the council according to Ms Sugden.

“This project, which spans Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, seems like it would have been a great opportunity to improve the number and quality of electric vehicle charge points in this area,” Ms Sugden said.

“It was awarded more than €6.4m from the EU to carry out the installations, but it seems that Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council was not part of it. 

“I will be writing to the council to find out whether this was an opt-in scheme and to, again, ask them to detail any plans they have to expand the charge point network in this area.”

“With the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars getting closer every day we should be taking advantage of every fund and scheme available to enhance this infrastructure,” she added.

CCGBC was also not one of the nine councils in the North that formed a consortium last year to install charging points in residential areas where private off-street charging is not available.

Increasing the fleet of EV's is an important part of the North's plans to cut carbon emissions.

Last year Climate Emergency UK included CCGBC as one of the remaining 20% of UK councils yet to adopt a climate strategy.

Of the 409 local authorities across the UK, 84 still did not have climate action plans, and 139 had not committed to reaching net zero emissions by a specific date according to the campaigners.

The group graded 325 plans according to 28 questions grouped into nine categories.

It included: how well councils’ plans would mitigate the impact of climate change locally, whether climate and ecological emergency was integrated into existing policies, community engagement, climate education, scale of emissions targets and commitments to tackle the ecological emergency.

Causeway Coast and Glens and Mid Ulster Councils both scored 0% while DCSDC scored 25%.

Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council did not respond to requests for comment about its climate strategy before going to print