Swindon drives electric charging

By Nicky Godding

19 March 2024

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EV Charging

Up to 600 electric vehicle charging points will be installed across Swindon in early 2025, thanks to a successful funding bid.

The £2.321 million funding from the Government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, will support Swindon Borough Council’s mission to achieve net zero, as well as the national decarbonisation target for phasing out new petrol and diesel cars.

The EV charging points will primarily be provided on residential streets and provide a network of 7kW charging points.

The council will be engaging with communities in areas that do not have off-street parking or access to EV charging.

The council also plans to run resident surveys specifically targeting the groups most likely to benefit from the charging points scheme, and will also engage with ward and parish councillors to understand feedback from communities.

Councillor Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, said: “It’s great news that we have been awarded this significant pot of money to install more on-street charging points as we want to make electric vehicle ownership a more viable option for more people, in more places.

“We’ll be going out to tender mid-summer, with the hope to get the charging points installed in early 2025. If we want to deliver on our mission to achieve net zero then we must do all we can to help local people make positive changes to the way they live their lives, which also benefit the environment. This scheme is an important step on that journey.”

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.