Second electric vehicle charge point installed in Daventry

Daventry District Council's environmental improvement Officer Joely Slinn with operations assistant Rob Burton at the new electric vehicle charging point in Lodge Road.

The addition of the new facility in the Lodge Road car park means up to four electric vehicles can now be charged for free at the same time.

It has been installed by the District Council following the success of the first charge point, which opened in May 2013.

Environment portfolio holder Councillor Jo Gilford said: “We have seen growing demand for the public charge point as the take-up of electric vehicles has grown.

“We are committed to being at the forefront of environmental innovations in transport, and key to that is having the infrastructure in place to meet future demand.

"This new charge point will help us meet that demand and we expect it to be well-used by the public.”

The £7,000 project follows the publication of the council's Electric ‘Plug-In’ Vehicle Infrastructure Plan 2016-18, which highlighted the need to improve facilities across the district in response to a 250% increase in the numbers of electric vehicles on our roads in the last two years.

The first charge point at Lodge Road has been used more than 1,400 times since it was installed, saving 7.6 tonnes of CO2 compared to the emissions produced by the average petrol or diesel vehicle.

That’s roughly the amount of CO2 that would be created by driving an average petrol car for more than 12 days non-stop.

Both of the public charge points at Lodge Road are Chargemaster single phase 32 Amp/7KW with type 2 sockets (7-pin sockets) and are free to use for up to 4 hours.

They are compatible with Plugged in Midlands (formerly Plugged in Places), POLAR/Chargemaster, Plugged in Midlands and BMW RFID cards. Compatible cards are also available to borrow from the council’s reception during office opening hours.