FREE charging points for electric vehicles in a council car park – now fenced off for being wrongly used by residents as energy costs soar – could soon face new tariffs.

Cash-strapped Slough Borough Council is proposing to introduce tariffs on its free electric vehicle (EV) charging regime but has second-guessed itself over fears it will turn off owners.

Questions were asked by Independent councillor Wayne Strutton (Haymill & Lynch Hill) to Slough Borough Council’s lead member for financial oversight, Cllr Rob Anderson (Lab: Britwell & Northborough) regarding the EV chargers at the Herschel and Hatfield car parks.

EV owners have been using the points for free to charge up their vehicles. However, Cllr Strutton was concerned this will increase the council’s electric bill significantly further given the hike in energy costs.

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He was also concerned that the EV points in the Herschel car park’s basement were not advertised to residents and seemed to be only for council employees and councillors who were “in the know”.

The local authority, which effectively declared bankruptcy in 2021, already barricaded the basement of the Herschel car park last month where the 13 EV chargers are installed, however, Cllr Anderson said the fencing has been removed “in error” and arrangements have been made to correct this.

A council spokesperson previously said these were meant to be used by council employees for its EV fleet and were in use in 2021 following delays with the contractor. The points were being used by residents “temporarily and unintended,” according to Cllr Anderson.

Slough Observer: The 13 EVs were only meant to be used by council employeesThe 13 EVs were only meant to be used by council employees (Image: LDRS)

There are three charge points on the top deck for the public to use free of charge, but two of them are broken. On top of this, the council closes the top deck when it’s cold and icy due to “health and safety” reasons.

Cllr Strutton wrote: “Given the huge increase of SBC’s electric bills due to cost increases of supply and this authority’s huge financial burden, this cannot be acceptable especially given previous messages to me re the lower floor not being open to public (as was due to making rental off floor space more attractive to renters of our HQ building) until as I am being now informed has been accessible since early summer 22 but not advertised to the public as to their availability and parking spaces to be used.”

In his responses to Cllr Strutton’s questions, Cllr Anderson revealed there were 566 charging events last year at Herschel multi-storey car park from 68 different users, which consumed nearly 12,000 kwh of electricity.

Slough Observer: A barricade at the basement's entrance was removed in errorA barricade at the basement's entrance was removed in error (Image: LDRS)

The local authority is still waiting for its final electricity bill but is assuming that the worst-case scenario could be £5,272.08. Assuming that all 68 users paid for five hours of parking, which is a £5 charge, this equals to £2,830 to cover the bill.

“It can be seen that, although the numbers are small, we must now apply a tariff for all of our public EV charging points to avoid subsidising car parking/EV charging given the increased cost of electricity,” Cllr Anderson writes.

He also said the costs of implementing and administrating a charge system will be considered against costs. He cited tariffs that have been applied to other council-owned car parks, such as The Centre, where the local authority received £13,966.84 in income in 2021.

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However, the lead member warned that the occupancy rate of people using the charge points is “poor” and applying a charge could decline these numbers even further.

Cllr Anderson added people could have seen the charge points advertised on the operator’s app and website as well as on market leading website ZapMap.