Alliance Councillors call for more EV Charging points to be set up by Council
Dundrum and many other local villages in South Down don’t have EV charging points.
This shortcoming has been addressed by Alliance Councillors as they brought a motion to Newry Mourne and Down District Council which was referred to the Environment Committee this week.
Councillor McMurray has described the availability of only 13 public EV charging points in the whole Council Area between Carryduff and Crossmaglen as “embarrassing”.
He is targeting to have at least at least one EV charging point in each village in Slieve Croob.
Cllr Andy McMurray said: “Only Castlewellan has a charging point in the whole Sleive Croob electoral area. But Council has an embarrassment of property in all the villages in our area.
“Dundrum has the Council funded picnic area for visitors with several other car-parks an on-street parking.
“There is plenty of room. We are a tourist area and need to cater for visitors. It’s the same pattern throughout my area.
“Seaforde has the Council funded picnic area as does Clough which also has the commuter-park. Drumaness has 3 suitable Council-owned sites, Ballykinlar has the playing fields and there is on-street parking available for EV charging in places like Ballyward and Loughlinisland”.
Councillor McMurray, who is also Newry Mourne and Down Council’s Alliance Party leader, noted: “Last year Alliance successfully proposed setting a target for our Council area of either 1% of our 8,000 parking spots to be EV charging points, or to have one charging point in every one of our 181 carparks.
“In May of this year, Council management responded saying they could not afford to implement these targets as the cost would be up to £2.7 million and each EV charging point would cost Council £12,000.
“My Alliance Colleagues Councillor Cadogan Enright from Downpatrick and Helena Young from Newry recently debunked this estimate and have shown that EV Charging Companies are willing to pay Council rent and share revenue as well.
“Far from costing us money, we have a new source of Council income that will replace the loss of up to ½ a million pounds in rates as filling stations close over the next ten years.”
Downpatrick Alliance Councillor Cadogan Enright agreed with Cllr McMurray and said: “In 2014 following the Review of Public Administration (RPA), Council took over responsibility for 51 DfI town and village centre car-parks across our Council area.
“This was on top of the 130 it already managed. This does not even count big car-parks such as that in the Council HQ in Downpatrick.
“Providing EV charging points in every village and town is not a responsibility to be shirked, but part of the modernisation of our Council area that will bring us new revenues and reduce rates.
“Not everyone has a front garden suitable for charging EV’s. We need to ensure that everyone can make the switch.
“We put forward a new notice of motion for October’s Council meeting requiring Council Management to offer tranches of car-parking spots to all EV Charging Companies in Ireland for a 2-year trial assessment of service, value for money and the best deal for ratepayers and the Council.
“And whichever companies perform well in this trail to be offered a long-term contract”, added Cllr Enright. “This has now been taken aboard by Council.”
