Crawley network of electric vehicle charging points planned

An initial list of 65 potential sites for the equipment was approved during a virtual meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday (June 24).

The council currently own only three public charging points – in the Orchard Street and town hall car parks – but the new list includes the neighbourhood parades and community centres, along with Tilgate Park, the Hawth and the town hall.

Gurinder Jhans, cabinet member for environmental services and sustainability, said: “This work is absolutely integral to things we need to undertake in response to our climate emergency declaration, which we passed last year.

“We know transport contributes over a third of carbon emissions across Crawley, so to meet our climate targets we really need to work as quickly as we can to enable residents to switch to lower emission vehicles.”

The strategy was developed by West Sussex County Council after the government announced the sale of petrol and diesel cars would be banned from 2040 – and possibly as early as 2032.

With a national target to be carbon neutral by 2050 already set, the need for enough infrastructure to cope with this next generation of vehicles became something of a priority.

Last year, the county council was told that 7,300 more charging points would be needed in West Sussex by 2030 to cater for the 161,000 electric vehicles expected to have taken to the roads.

Arun, Mid Sussex, Horsham, Adur and Worthing councils are all on board with the strategy.

The next step will be for the county council to invite tenders from firms interested in installing the network of charging points.

A contract could be awarded as soon as October with installation starting by the end of the year.

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