Stockport invests £15m in EV charging

I am sure the auto industry is funding and pushing for this to happen in order to stay relevant. Electric vehicles still need energy to work, the pollution only happens ‘elsewhere’. Not to mention these are still cars cluttering our public spaces and creating an unsafe and unwelcoming environment. To say nothing of charging cables trailing across footpaths, which often happens. Stockport has been destroyed by the use of cars. If we truly want to live in better balance with our environment we need that £15mil spent on walking and cycling not car use.

With around 20% of Stockport households having no access to a car or van, this is £15m being spent so that wealthier people can continue to ignore the impacts on the environment and society that how they spend their wealth has.

how come the charges now installed on torkington Park car park are for Taxis !!

I see the miserabilists are out in force on this thread and look forward to reading their manifesto for how they intend to force us all to live in wattle and daub homes. Good luck with selling that to the voters.

Will these wealthy EV owners be forced to pay for the electricity they use or is this a case (yet again) of less well off, car-less people subsidising rich people with cars?

Why have both Cheadle Hulme Precinct and station car parks been ignored?

100 charging points is very low considering the number of EV and Hybrid vehicle’s around the town. They are needed in every street and car park in the borough otherwise by 2030 there will be queues to get your car charged.

They have no manifesto. Everyone on a bike apparently, I think that’s it. Meanwhile the rest of us residents of Stockport have to live in reality so this is a good thing that the council are doing.

So Gethin, the 80% of Stockport residents ie the vast majority, shouldn’t have any infrastructure installed for the transition from oil based combustion vehicles? Luckily the council don’t agree.

Seem to be mostly if not all at paid for car parks. The ones that were within HG P&R were removed November 2022 this taking away the incentive to use public transport. Really not the smartest locations to lighten the load on local traffic.

It is good to see fast and rapid chargers being installed. This means EV drivers can wait whilst their cars charge before moving them and freeing up the chargers for others. Nice one.

@Anonymous – don’t know about in Stockport but elsewhere there’s been electric taxi trials run where taxi drivers can rent an EV taxi for a few months and it includes charging costs, the idea being to demonstrate that they’re a good option for taxis but also to test what infrastructure is required. EV taxis are a really good idea but you need widespread charging infrastructure to allow fairly frequent short top-ups between customers.

You couldn’t make up some some of the comments on here. Stockport actually doing something very positive (for a change) and all of a sudden the kind of nonsense you wouldn’t have heard from Harringay council in the 1970’s is being quoted as a reason not to. I’ll be happy to pay for my electricity, same as I’m happy to pay for my petrol at the moment…just. I’ll also be delighted to use my bike when I can and I’d ride my horse to market if they’d let me. Well done Stockport council. Now if you could nip over and have a word with Salford council too that would be grand.

3 large hubs with 8 100kw rapid chargers (with enforced 1hr parking restrictions) in each hub would be much more useful then a small number of AC chargers spread over many car parks.

It’s not possible to know if a charger in a carpark will be unoccupied and AC chargers will often be occupied all day or all night as noone will remain with a car for a few hours as it charges and people can’t leave their employment etc when a car has finished charging so will block the chargers for a long time.

This is a positive thing! The EV infrastructure in the UK is appalling & we’re behind the curve. For those of you who think that EV drivers are ‘wealthy’, that electric charging will be free & that you will be subsiding this – GET A GRIP!!! EV users pay for charging just as you would pay to put petrol in a car. This is the future of motoring.

Why not spend even 1% of that on improving our towns roads, mainly pot holes!

Why don’t the charging companies pay for the installation and operation if these things are so good and profitable. Why should the council ie us pay for chargers? Also it’s funny that all these people tell us the electricity is all from renewable sources, if true, who is using power from the gas fired power stations still happily burning away. Hydrogen is the future of power for all vehicles.

Definitely a positive step forward, but why no charger on Bramhall Lane in Davenport, yet chargers at similar high streets such as Didsbury Rd?

@Paul Longshaw – there tends to be two operating models. 1 – the Council does nothing apart from grant planning permission and collects a rental fee from the chargepoint operator, who then pay for the hardware, electricity network upgrade etc but then collect the profit on the electricity used for charging; or 2 – council pays for the hardware and the operational management system (collecting payments etc) but then also collects the revenue from the charging.

Option 1 is easiest and lowest risk, option 2 is riskier but more lucrative in the long run. If I were a council, I’d go for 1.

@ Anonymous (March 27, 2023 at 9:31 pm)
They’d be better investing the money in public transport, walking and other active travel infrastructure which would benefit all residents, not just those who can afford to drive, and would have the added benefit of not perpetuating those current negative impacts of car driving that won’t be solved by electrification such as the social and economic impacts of traffic and congestion.