At the Reigate and Banstead’s Overview and Scrutiny meeting on 14 March 2024 there were conflicting messages around if and when EV charging points would be fitted in all of Reigate and Banstead’s public car parks. No timescales for the installation of any charging points were made
One Banstead councillor confirmed that some 27 months after publicly committing to deliver EV parking points in the Council’s car park in Banstead it still isn’t working – leading to complaints from residents. Council officers confirmed that several council departments need to work together to make this happen.
Cllr Hannah Avery (Conservative Lead Councillor for Neighbourhood Services) said, “We are working together to investigate and install more electric charging points in all of our car parks.”
Cllr Jonathan Essex (Green, Redhill East) asked the Councilor to confirm if this was now a target to “put EV charging points in all car parks” (and could therefore be reflected in the Council’s Environmental Strategy that had just been reviewed.
But the the Lead Councillor for Neighbourhood Services, backtracked saying, “I wasn’t actually making a commiment to every car park…”
Evidently the commitment to roll-out EV charging points to our car parks more than two years ago remains unplanned and lacks project oversight to make it happen soon despite residents clearly wanting to recharge their electric vehicles across the borough – charging points in our car parks would make that easier.
