Rapid charging points for electric vehicles need greater urgency – The Yorkshire Post says

The HGV driver shortage is a case in point – mitigating action taken could have been taken if Ministers overseeing Brexit, transport and food had all worked together.

And it is the same with provision of charging points for electric vehicles following an admission that the law needs to be changed to make this mandatory at all new housing and office developments.

Why, just weeks Britain hosts the COP26 climate change conference, is this not already the case when The Yorkshire Post has, for some time, argued that new buildings need to be future-proofed at the planning stage?

From flood-resistant designs to cycle storage facilities and charging points for electric vehicles as diesel and petrol-powered cars are phased out, this should already be happening by default.

Yet the fact that transport ministers will, presumably, now have to lobby Robert Jenrick’s housing department, which oversees planning and other matters, to make the necessary changes does not bode well.

And there’s another point. As Sheffield MP Clive Betts, the chair of Parliament’s Communities Committee, pointed out, there is evidence that some locations have insufficient power for “rapid” charging.

Yet, while Transport Minister Rachel Maclean said in response that his concerns will be addressed in “our infrastructure strategy” and “consumer experience consultation”, she offered no sense of any urgency – or policy co-ordination. More’s the pity.

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