A BASINGSTOKE man who has ordered a new electric car says he is dismayed at the lack of charging points outside the town area.

Graham Payne, who lives in a Buckskin area with no direct driveway or designated parking site near his home, says he will have no easy way to charge his new car.

“We have first-come-first-serve parking on the road where we live. It is nearly impossible to charge your car here,” said Graham, a 49-year-old quality inspector.

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“I have gone to the council, councillors and the MPs. One councillor visited once, and I haven’t heard back from him since. I had a generic response from Maria Miller. But nobody seems to be interested.”

Graham, who is waiting on his car to be delivered in May, said the only way he will be able to charge if he runs a cable over a public pathway to the nearest parking space, which could be a good 10-20 metres away from his home.

“It is not an acceptable position to be in,” he said.

“Every time I have to charge my car, I will have to speak to my neighbours and ask if they can move their cars, so that I can park mine closer to the socket.

“When I contacted the Basingstoke council, they turned around saying we are putting charging spaces in public car parks. That’s’ great, but no one lives in public car parks. Is it feasible to drive from Buckskin to Leisure Park car park, leave the car there for charging, walk home, and then walk back to the car park after four hours to pick up the vehicle?

“Or who’s going to go and sit in a public car park for four hours when you don’t have any need to be in town. Even the charging point in Morrison has an hour-and-half limit on them. After that, you have to pay an overstay fee. It’s not

“If you need people to move to electric cars or hybrids, you need to help them out to achieve that.”

According to Quotezone.co.uk, which collates data from the Department of Transport, there are 83 public car charging points in Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council as of January 2022. This was up from 61 in January 2021.

Basingstoke also has the second-most number of public charging points in Hampshire (New Forest has 85). But the majority of these points are located in the town area – at public car parks, supermarkets etc.

Graham said the council should consider installing charging points at community car parks, like how other councils have done.

“There’s a scheme in Surrey where they put charging points on lampposts and you can scan with your phone and charge your car. The government gives grants to put this in place and help people out.

“The council needs to install charging points near estates that were made in the 60s like South Ham, Buckskin, Oakridge. We have got a huge communal car park just 500 metres away from our house. Put charging machines there and we can pull up and charge there.

“In eight years' time, you will only be allowed to buy plug-in hybrid or electric cars from manufacturers. People will go for electric cars if there is infrastructure. While the infrastructure is not there, nobody will jump on the bandwagon.”

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for the Natural Environment and Climate Improvement Cllr Mark Ruffell said: “Increasing the availability of chargers is a vital part of encouraging people to make the switch to electric vehicles, improving air quality and cutting emissions across our borough.

“We have taken significant steps already to roll out charging points in our public car parks, including creating Hampshire’s first publicly-owned EV charging hub, and we are working closely with Hampshire County Council as the local highway authority to help identify potential locations for on-street charging points and to support their swift installation.

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”Residents can find out more about the EV charging points rolled out by the borough council at www.basingstoke.gov.uk/vehicle-charging-point.”

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