£2 million invested in electric vehicles in Kirklees

Kirklees Council has agreed to invest £2 million in electric vehicles and charging points as part of its new ambitious plan to make the borough completely carbon neutral by 2038.

Set to be at the forefront of electric vehicle infrastructure provision, the council’s cabinet approved a £1 million investment to install five new rapid charge points and 80-100 new fast charge points in public car parks and on-street to support residents and visitors to move towards electric vehicles.

This will add to Kirklees’ current network which has three rapid chargers and 22 slow to fast chargers in the public domain, with a further 17 rapid chargers being installed in public locations by October 2021. Kirklees Council has also revealed that parking will also be free for hybrid and electric vehicles across the borough in a bid to encourage more people to drive them.

The West Yorkshire local authority will also invest another £1 million to add 50 new electric vehicles to its fleet, complimenting the five small electric vans, 20 electric and 30 hybrid pool cars the council currently has in its fleet and the 24 small electric vans which are already in the process of being procured.

Naheed Mather, cabinet member for Greener Kirklees, said: “Climate change is already happening and action to address it is now an emergency. Cases of extreme weather such as heat waves and rainfall are having consequences already in Kirklees with issues such as moorland fires and flooding in particular affecting the region.
 
“However, it’s not too late to prevent some of the very worst effects of climate change and we must act now. The council’s new long-term objective is to make Kirklees a carbon-neutral district by at least 2038. To help Kirklees achieve this we are making much needed investments in greener forms of travel and are encouraging people to switch to electric vehicles. We can only do this with everyone on-board so I urge people to read our plan and think about what you can do to improve our climate.”