Newry Mourne elected rep urging Council to plug into "lucrative" electric car charging market

A Co Down rep has urged the council to plug into a “huge opportunity” from the electricity market in light of only one new car charging point being identified for Newry City.

And the chosen single location at River Street carpark has been criticised as only being available at weekends for local residents. Newry, Mourne and Down District Council (NMDDC) has approved a total of 18 new Electric Vehicle (EV) charging locations in the district as part of a nine council consortium’s green energy scheme.

However, the chamber heard calls for the local authority to form a more lucrative strategy with terraced homes soon to be in “trouble” without access to EV charging points.

Downpatrick Alliance rep, Cadogan Enright said: “I would say that we have almost 200 carparks in the district and we have an estimate of 11,000 odd spaces. And about 50 of these town centre carparks, which we got from the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), are really where people want to be charging their cars.

“Virtually every village has a town centre carpark managed by us, but owned by DfI. I would like to clarify if we can use those carparks as well and not just be restricted on using our own legacy carparks. Clearly the town centre carparks are the places that we are going to make the most money as a council.”

The councillor, an avid campaigner for the green economy, has estimated the potential for the local authority to generate an income of millions of pounds in the near future, with the UK switch over from petrol and diesel to new electric powered vehicles.

The EV project is 25% match funded from DfI. The consortium of nine councils excludes only Belfast and Causeway Coast and Glen.

The aim of the scheme is to benefit homes without driveways or off street parking to be able to access a charging point with each location having dual connections.

Cllr Enright added: “There is about 47% of the district residents who don’t have a front garden or won’t be able to charge their cars in a front garden, [due to] living in terraced housing. So, when we finally transition to electric only cars within the next 10 years they’ll be in trouble.

“I would just say that this is a huge opportunity for us as the estimated turnover for charging cars in our district would run to about £65m a year, as a total amount of electricity that would be required. Were we as a council, controlling all the town centre carparks, to get 2% or 3% of that revenue it would be a very lucrative source of funds for council from the green economy.

“The key asks are to make sure we can use the ex-department carparks that we manage, but don’t own, as they are the key ones that we need. And we need to get on with and encourage the scheme as it is going to be a good earner for the council going forward.”

Only one location has been identified in Newry City at River Street carpark, which according to the council report should be located in “close proximity to a residential area”.

But Newry Sinn Fein cllr, Valerie Harte said: “River Street carpark would be one of our traditional areas, where cars are parked from 6am to 7pm, mainly with our commuters who work in the South. This is one of two carparks that they use, so you’d only really be able to use it to charge your car on a Saturday or Sunday.”

A council officer responded: “It would be useful to have the estimate of the £65m to validate those figures. We will also take that on board the matters raised on the River Street location and there will hopefully also be ways of enforcing the spaces to be made clear for EV charging.”

The officer added: “I think we are getting the most amount of charging points in the district, per any council in the consortium. It was quite a challenge to get the scheme over the line as it is the first time the council’s really looked at such a model. It has been successful so far and hopefully should be completed soon.

“The next step would be how we can use those other carparks and what the strategy would be for that, but we don’t know what that is yet. It is noted that the locations identified are subject to DfI and NI Electricity network approvals.”

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