Electric cars can reduce pollution and save motorists up to £1,000 a year compared with petrol-powered alternatives. The number sold across the UK has doubled in the last year, and looks set to skyrocket. But with few Camden homes having garages or drives, most residents would need to use public, on-street charging points.
Camden has one of the smallest networks of publicly-available electric vehicle charging points in London, with just 28 points across the whole borough of a quarter of a million people. This compares to hundreds in Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, and Richmond-upon-Thames. Camden needs a dramatic expansion of electric vehicle charging points.
The Conservative Government has given local councils millions of pounds to install these points. Because of this, the cost to Camden Council of installing a new charging point in an existing lamp-post is as low as £250. That means Camden could install 1,000 in current lamp-posts, in a way that doesn’t block the street or require extensive engineering, for less than 5% of the amount it spends on transport and parking every year.
Sadly, Labour-run Camden bid for just 1% of the funding allocated to London, so it’s installing just 33 points, not the thousands that we need. Conservatives have called on Camden to install far more to help residents go electric and take a big step towards cleaning our air.
Scroll down to see our proposal and sign the petition for Camden to go electric.