Whitstable Councillors submit plans for on street EV charging

Whitstable Councillors today submitted plans to Canterbury City Council on how to improve on-street electric vehicle charging in town. In 2019 Canterbury City Council installed three charging bays in Whitstable but since then the number of new electric cars bought per year has increased by over 700%  and no new ones have been sited. As part of the Council’s survey of Electronic Vehicles and Infrastructure, Cllr Val Kenny and Chris Cornell have submitted 12 new locations they think suitable for further feasibility work and concrete proposals about how we think we can improve the take up of electric vehicles in areas without their own off street parking.

“We know that potentially removing parking is controversial” said Cllr Val Kenny “but these new charging locations will be used by local people and provide an opportunity for people living in terraced housing to go green.”

In March local Labour councillors encouraged local residents to come forward with suitable locations for charging points and received over twenty five emails from residents interested in improving infrastructure. “We were genuinely surprised that other political parties didn’t engage fully in this consultation” said Cllr Chris Cornell. “With the impending climate emergency we can’t sit back and simply hope our town will get greener … we need to present concrete proposals to help ensure that it does”.