Low Carbon Travel in Denbighshire
As we reflect on Bike week (May 30th - June 5th), Clean Air day (June 17th) and a local school Climate Change protest which have all taken place this month, it’s a great time to be thinking about how we can all travel in a more carbon-friendly way.
Ysgol Llanrhaeadr
Perhaps you have an EV vehicle already or are thinking about getting one? Or maybe you are keen to use your bike or walk more for the short journeys we all do most frequently, such as that trip to the local shop or the school run. As a council we have plans to encourage local carbon travel within the authority for our staff and residents.
For residents, the Council has been carrying out an active travel public consultation in relation to existing and potential active travel routes in the authority. All local authorities in Wales have a statutory duty, under the terms of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, to produce these maps and they must be updated and re-submitted every 3 years.
The first stage of the consultation is now complete and we received a large amount of feedback from residents earlier this year. The draft maps have been produced and the final stage of the consultation will take place later this summer. This will be a 12-week statutory consultation exercise that will run between August and October 2021. During this phase the final (existing and potential) maps will be available online to our residents to view. The responses to the statutory consultation will then be collated and submitted to Welsh Government, along with the final existing and proposed maps, in November 2021.
We are also looking to support the uptake of electric vehicles across Denbighshire by delivering a pilot project which aims to install Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Points in 8 Public Car Parks across the County. This project is intended to provide EV Charging Points both on key routes and destination car parks in the county and also to trial the provision of Charging Points near some residential areas to provide an option for residents without off road charging options where they live. The areas identified for this first Phase are Llangollen, Ruthin, Denbigh, St Asaph, Rhyl and Prestatyn.
This is a new undertaking for the Council so we intend to learn more about this new technology during this pilot Phase 1 project. The project is still under development but it is hoped that the EV Charging Points will be up and running by Spring 2022.
Currently Electric Vehicle ownership in Denbighshire is low (according to Transport of Wales statistics around 200 electric vehicles were registered in the County at the end of 2020) but it is expected to grow over the next few years as we move towards 2030 and the Government ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles. However, feedback is that people need to be confident they can charge their vehicle when they are out and about before they make the transition to buying an electric vehicle. With a lack of Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Infrastructure also considered as one of the major barriers to people making the transition to EV Ownership this is a vital project if we are to succeed in creating a low carbon future.
As a Council, we declared a Climate Change and Ecological Emergency in July 2019 and subsequently the Council formally adopted the Climate and Ecological Change Strategy in February 2021, which can be viewed on our website.
In our baseline year (2019/20) for this strategy, the council’s Fleet contributed to 14% of DCC carbon emissions and our aim is to reduce that by 60% by 31 March 2030. Our plans to help us achieve that goal include continuing to replace any current council vehicles with EV via our ‘electric vehicle (EV) first’ replacement policy and our hope is to replace 30 fossil-fuelled vehicles with EV during 2021/22 to contribute to reducing emissions and improving air quality.
We are also looking to increase our corporate and public EV infrastructure. Corporately we already have 14 chargers at DCC sites for our 11 existing electric vehicles and plan to provide more charging infrastructure at Council properties going forward.
Further information will be made available for all of these low carbon projects as they develop via the Council’s website and via social media.