Minutes of New Town & Broughton Community Council’s ordinary meeting, at Broughton St Mary’s church, on Monday 13 March 2023 at 7pm
Actions and decisions are red italic. ND (‘no dissent’) means that no-one spoke or voted against a decision.
URLs have been added by the minutes secretary. Continue reading
Minutes of New Town & Broughton Community Council’s ordinary meeting, at Broughton St Mary’s church, on Monday 13 February 2023 at 7pm
Actions and decisions are red italic. ND (‘no dissent’) means that no-one spoke or voted against a decision.
URLs have been added by the minutes secretary. Continue reading
In our previous post, we highlighted concerns raised by users of the recently commissioned EV charge points.
Whilst we broadly support the roll-out of these charge points, we are concerned that users may not be fully aware of the restrictions on their use – specifically the penalties for over-staying. After a useful discussion at the recent NTBCC February meeting (which was extremely well-attended by local councillors , thank you to all of them – very much appreciated) – we now have a clearer understanding about the concerns that have been raised with NTBCC relating to penalty charges being incurred for overstaying the stated allowable time at these charge points.
Although the Council’s website is clear about the maximum allowable stay at these locations (dependent on the type of EV charger as stated below), it is less clear on the process for determining this.
Standard 7kW charger
Fast 22kW charger
Rapid 50kW charger
What we learned was that the duration is determined by the connection time of the vehicle at these EV chargers which is automatically recorded by ChargePlace Scotland. If the maximum duration is exceeded, then a penalty charge is levied immediately on the user’s Charge Place Scotland account. There is no ‘grace period’ and users may not be aware that a penalty charge has been levied until they receive their statement of account from ChargePlace Scotland in the following days / weeks.
So, for clarity, if your vehicle is connected beyond the maximum stay allowable (which is dependent on the EV charger output as above) – then PLEASE NOTE you will incur a penalty charge.
Whilst we would hope that further consideration is given to the maximum allowable durations permitted (which seem relatively short, especially on the Rapid chargers and to a lesser extent, the Fast chargers); currently users of these charge points will have accepted the current restrictions and penalty charges and therefore need to abide by them.
Meeting starts 7pm, and in-person, at the Drummond Room, Broughton St Mary’s,
NTBCC supported the initiative by Edinburgh Council in principle to roll-out additional EV charging points in the New Town following their successful bid for funding from the Scottish Government in 2021. This initiative formed part of the high level ‘City Mobility Plan’ proposal to install more electric vehicle charging points across the New Town and other peripheral locations.
For context, Edinburgh Council were awarded a grant of £2.2m from Transport Scotland through the ‘Switched on Towns and Cities Fund’ for installing electric vehicle (EV) on-street chargers across Edinburgh – a total of 66 on-street charging points would be put in across the city as part of the first phase of implementation. Work was expected to be complete with all chargers operational by Spring 2022 although this was delayed by a few months for installations within NTBCC’s area.
The Switched on Towns and Cities Fund aimed to facilitate a step change in the uptake of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) in Scotland’s towns and cities. Its objective was to incentivise, encourage and promote the use of plug-in EVs.
Three of the streets selected as part of this initiative fell within NTBCC’s area: East London Street, India Street and Heriot Row. A further installation was also planned for Montgomery Street (4 chargers with 8 bays), just outside NTBCC’s area.
We did question the wisdom behind the proposal to install an EV charge point at the bottom of India Street and this was subsequently removed from the scope.
We also offered advice, following discussions with local residents, regarding the specific locations selected as well as the types of EV charge points being proposed; however following some delays in commissioning, the EV charge points have been installed and are now all in operation as originally proposed (with the exception of India Street as mentioned).
Minutes of New Town & Broughton Community Council’s ordinary meeting, held in Broughton’s St Mary’s Church, on Monday 14 November 2022 at 7pm Continue reading