Electric car club set to be launched by Suffolk CC
Residents in Suffolk will be able to participate in a trial of electric community vehicles next summer.
Plug In Suffolk Car Clubs will be placing sixteen electric vehicles across eight locations in Suffolk which local residents can book by the minute, hour or day. Planned locations include Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket, Sudbury, Needham Market, Stowmarket, Lowestoft and Woodbridge.
Car Clubs have already offered people in other parts of the UK access to local, low-emission vehicles without the expense of owning one. Local communities in these areas have already experienced many benefits including improved air quality, reduced congestion and increased mobility for those without access to their own car.
Current providers remain reluctant to fully fund electric community vehicles in rural and semi-rural areas like Suffolk as they do not yet have the real-world data to support the usage.
Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK) estimated that in 2022, each car club vehicle in the UK replaced around 22 private cars’ (CoMoUK Annual Car Club report 2022).
The project is funded by Suffolk’s public sector organisations, helping deliver on two of the Suffolk Climate Emergency Plan’s goals; a reduced number of cars on the road and an increased proportion of vehicles on the road that are low or zero emission. Additional charge point funding is being provided by the Department for Transport’s On Street Residential ChargePoint Scheme (ORCS).
Councillor Neil MacDonald, Chair, Suffolk Public Sector Leaders, said:
“Suffolk residents have been asking about the possibility of bringing Car Clubs to Suffolk following the recent success of the Car Club trial in Oxfordshire, therefore I am looking forward to the launch of our trial. I am hoping that many individuals and families will benefit from the scheme and help to bring electric community vehicles permanently to our county.”
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.