Council votes against electric vehicles

They're used for public health

Councillors in Torridge have chosen to save taxpayers money rather than improve their carbon footprint.

Torridge District Council, which was last year ranked as one of the worst performing local authorities in England for working towards net-zero targets, is sticking with its eight-year-old diesel vans despite a recommendation from officers that they are replaced with electric ones.

The three vans are used for the public health and community safety service and are due to be replaced.

Public health and community safety manager Phil Gilbert said 12 days were lost last year while the vans were in for maintenance and they had had “a hard life”.

More than £50,000 is budgeted to replace them with electric models pushing up the costs by £13,000 but there would be a saving of £175 a month on fuel.

However, councillors said there is plenty more life in the current vans.

Cllr Peter Hames (Green, Appledore) said the vans fit into the council’s climate targets but diesel vans are “far more challenging to the environment” while Cllr Doug Bushby (Ind, Bideford North) said the book was “still open on how clean electric vehicles are”.

“I don’t think an extra £10,000 is worth it,” he said. “If we are going to have three new vans they should be diesel.”

A Climate Emergency UK assessment of action taken by district councils to reach net zero targets placed Torridge 149th out of 164 councils last year. Its carbon footprint doubled in three years.

Since then the council has replaced some vehicles with electric but admits it won’t meet reach net zero by 2030.