Electric vehicle chargepoints have been installed and are live at Dorset Council car parks around the county.
See the map showing the live sites. These offer residents and businesses a cleaner and greener way to travel in Dorset.
Further chargepoints will be switched on in the coming weeks at other Dorset Council sites around the county.
The installation of the new chargepoints is one of a number of measures in the council’s ambition to become zero carbon by 2040 and accelerate several actions in its Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy Action Plan.
Joju Charging installed the chargepoints. Installation and management costs were met by Joju and their funding partners Grønn Kontakt.
Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said: “Dorset has an important role to play in helping to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.
“We’re committed to becoming a carbon-neutral council by 2040 at the latest, and making other changes needed to help the whole of Dorset become carbon-neutral by 2050. Providing drivers with more chargepoints for their electric vehicles is an exciting step towards this.
“The government plans to phase out sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, so it is important drivers are offered more sustainable travel options now.”
Cllr Bryan continued: “We are grateful to Joju Charging and their partners Grønn Kontakt for funding both the installation and management of this scheme and for their enthusiasm and hard work in getting us to this stage.”
Chas Warlow from Joju said: “We are very happy to be working with Dorset Council on the roll-out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the county, to help the county move to a low-carbon future.
“The fast (22kW) chargepoints we are installing are supplied with 100% renewable energy and will enable drivers to charge their electric vehicles while visiting the county’s towns”.
A quick top-up (a charge of 15 minutes) will enable a journey of about 15 miles, or a full charge will take 2-4 hours, depending on the vehicle.
The new chargepoints are located at the following locations:
- Langton Road, Blandford Forum, DT11 7DZ
- Fairfield long stay, Dorchester, DT1 1QW
- Wollaston Field, Dorchester, DT1 1EQ
- Gas Lane, Gillingham, SP8 4AT
- Holmbush, Lyme Regis, DT7 3HX
- Bell Street, Shaftesbury, SP7 8AP
- Coldharbour, Sherborne, DT9 4HA
- Old Market Yard, Sherborne, DT9 3HR
- Potters Wheel, Manor Way, Verwood, BH31 7AQ
- The Hub, Verwood, BH31 7QE
- Rempstone Centre, Wareham, BH20 4NX
- West Bay Road, West Bay, DT6 4EL
- Governor’s Lane, Weymouth, DT4 8DD
- Melcombe Regis, Weymouth, DT4 7DW
- Swannery, Weymouth, DT4 7TY
- King Street, Wimborne Minster, BH21 1EA
- Westfield Close, Wimborne Minster, BH21 1ES
See the locations of all Dorset’s chargepoints at www.zap-map.com
Keep up-to-date with progress on Electric vehicle chargepoints in Dorset
To use the chargepoints, download the Gronn Kontakt electric vehicle charging app from the Appstore or Google Play or visit gronnkontakt.co.uk
Find out how electric vehicles can be good for your business
Two webinars are taking place this spring to help businesses find out more about electric vehicles.
The first webinar will take place on Tuesday 30 March at 11.30am and will last for approx. 90 minutes. Businesses will hear from the experts about EV fleets and there is time allocated where you can ask questions. The webinar will be recorded so if you are unable to attend, you can watch it at a later date. Find out more about the webinars.
Excellent news, when will our Wareham EV Charging point be available?
Thank you.
Hi Beryl, there have been some difficulties with the Wareham site. We’re working closely with Joju to overcome these as quickly as possible. Regards, Claire.
Fairfield and Wollaston Field charger don’t appear on the map that’s linked (Zap-Map)
Hi Colin, these should be showing up now. Regards, Claire
Good that more charge points are coming, but why so many different providers that all require different apps to use. Come on, make it simple please.
I would like to commend Dorset Council on installing electric car charge points.
However one of the biggest deterrents to electric car use is the need to download a multitude of different apps to use different networks.
I expect to be able to ‘pay at pump’ as with a petrol car – with my contactless card.
The best charging stations like Osprey at Poundbury already offer this.
Please ask this firm to consider changing their payment arrangements as a matter of urgency.
Can
PL
I concur with the comments above – “pay at pump” is the best option, I currently have 6 apps to access charge points outside of the Tesla network.
I think it’s great and highly important that these will be from 100% renewable sources, but 22kw isn’t that fast by comparison. These speeds of charger are simply a convenient / comfort top-up whilst shopping, and not for filling the battery. Also figures generally highly mis-quoted for what can be added in a certain amount of time. Even the most savvy Renault Zoe driver will only achieve 88 miles from 1 hour charge, 44 miles for a Tesla Model 3 as they can only accept 11kw/hr, slower again for the Jaguar I-Pace as that can only take 7.4kW (it would take 12hrs to charge the I-Pace on a 22kw AC charger)
If we want to be more forward thinking and not scare off would-be EV owners we need more rapid chargers (+150kw) around the county, and country come to think of it.
It’s early days and every step to moving over to EVs is a step in the right direction.
Hi Jon, The figures quoted are provided by the Energy savings Trust whom we consider to be a reliable source.
It is important that we select the right type of charging infrastructure based on needs and location. Fast chargers (7kw-22kw) are considered to be best suited to destination locations such as public car parks, where people are frequently parked for over an hour and would receive a good level of charge within this time.
We have explored with Joju the inclusion of 75 kw rapid chargers in Dorset but we have been unable to find a viable site due to installation costs so far.
We remain open to the idea of installing more rapids in future phases if demand proves there is a need for these and will closely monitor chargepoint use and other market trends to inform our decision making going forward. Thanks, Claire.
Hi, adding card point functionality to fast chargers would make the charger unviable financially. However, the market has started to consolidate by making roaming agreements to reduce the number of Apps, but they’re not quite there yet.
The Government is also looking at this issue and may look to legislate on payment requirements in the future if this situation doesn’t improve.
You can make one off payments via the Gronn Kontakt website, or you can request a fob from Gronn Kontakt after registering. Contactless card payments will be available on the rapid chargepoints when they are replaced in the next few months. Claire
I totally agree, and hope our council takes this on board. Would you expect to use an app to get access to your local BP garage? Of course not, but most electric car chargers work that way. We want chip & pin access for all
Why no charging points in Bournemouth, the council must be spending all their money on things for the Uni student. They need to fix all the pothole in Bournemouth, many drivers now spend more time look at the road for potholes instead of watching other road users. It’s a disgrace with all the money they get for building cycle lanes when people don’t use them. Perhaps they need to do a survey to find out how many people use the cycle lanes per hour.
This is one of the chief reasons why myself and many others feel unable to change to electric vehicles. Also have serious concerns over battery production- cobalt etc
Has the Bell Street, Shaftesbury chargepoint been fitted?
If not do you kno wehen it will be?
Hi Russell, yes, it has. You can search for available chargepoints using the zap map: https://www.zap-map.com/live/
can we use the chargepoints between 6pm and 8am when there are no poarking charges?
Can you use the chart points in Bell Street Shaftesbury when there are no car park charges between 6pm and 8am?