More electric vehicle charge points for Argyll and Bute

More than 70 of the council’s vehicles are now electric or plug-in hybrid

Electric vehicle chargers are to be installed at council offices, depots and schools across Argyll and Bute in a £100,000 project.

None of the new charge points will be in the Helensburgh area though, as the council says that the town previously benefited from the Transport Scotland funding.

So the council has changed more than 70 vehicles to electric or plug-in hybrid, with plans in place to bring more into its 500-vehicle fleet in the future.

It says the latest bid to Transport Scotland focussed on key areas where there are gaps in the existing network – chargers being installed at sites on Bute, Islay and Tiree, as well in Campbeltown and Oban.

Policy lead for roads and transport Andrew Kain said: “This is really good news, and congratulations should go to the team involved in the funding bid. This money will help us put the infrastructure in place to move even more of our vehicles over to cleaner, greener alternatives.

‘’The funding also means that there will be less need for council vehicles to use public chargers, which has a positive effect on increasing the availability of the public network.

‘’We have plans in place to expand our current public network of 30 chargers with another 55 sites agreed.

“We are currently in discussions with Transport Scotland about how we fund future public charger installs.’’

Transport Scotland invites local authorities to bid for funding through its competitive Switched on Fleets initiative, which is designed to enable the transition of older petrol and diesel vehicles to electric options.

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