Vehicles Set To Get A Boost While Parking In Bath

Electric vehicle owners can take their pick of places to charge their car for free when they’re visiting Bath, thanks to a new initiative by the Council.

Charlotte Street, Odd Down Park & Ride and Lansdown Park & Ride each have four allocated parking spaces, which benefit from access to a 32amp/7kw ‘fast’ charge sockets, allowing a full recharge from flat in under 4 hours.

Councillor Caroline Roberts (Lib-Dem, Newbridge), Cabinet Member for Transport, said: “Electric cars are much more environmentally friendly than fossil fuel based vehicles, so Bath & North East Somerset Council is pleased to be supporting the use of them through electric charging points.

“This is a definite bonus for air quality and we hope people will make the best possible use of them.”

The Council has committed to provide the electricity for free until at least April 2015.

Normal parking tariffs will apply. Registration onto the scheme is free for the first 200 users. Any further users will need to pay £50 to join.

Registered users can already view a map of available charging points, and will soon be able to reserve a charge point from their smart phone.

The charge points were paid for by the Local Sustainable Transport Fund – a government grant for a package of measures aimed at improving transport.

It is hoped the charge points will encourage electric vehicle use, lower emissions and improve air quality in Bath and North East Somerset’s three Air Quality Management Areas (Bath, Saltford and Keynsham).

A new website has been launched promoting the Source West network, www.sourcewest.info, mapping all of the publicly available charge points as well as providing all you need to know about electric vehicles.

A smartphone app is also available for users to reserve the points.

The Source West brand (covering Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire) extends the existing Source brands (including Source London and Source East) adding to the network of charging points and enabling registered users to charge their car at any of the charge points on the national charge point registry, using a single smart card.

To demonstrate the extent of electric vehicle charging now available across the country, charge-station manufacturer POD Point will be driving an electric vehicle 2,000 miles around the country this summer.

Bath will be one of the featured stops on the long-distance journey, with the car recharging in Charlotte Street before continuing on its national tour.