Electric car charging points come to three West Berkshire stations

ELECTRIC car charging points will be installed at three of the district’s train stations as part of a £9m government initiative - but Newbury commuters will have to wait their turn.
First Great Western has been awarded £315,000 by the Office for Low emission vehicles to install the devices at 44 of its 210 stations - including Aldermaston, Theale and Goring & Streatley.
Oxford, Reading, Westbury, Didcot and Pewsey will also see devices installed as part of the scheme - but Newbury will be made to wait.
Transport Policy Team Leader at West Berkshire Council, Jenny Graham, said: ”The reason why Newbury Station is not included at this stage is because electric vehicle charging points will be considered for implementation as part of the Market Street / station car park redevelopment.
“This makes more sense than installing them now in a car park where there is no spare capacity and where they would need to be removed when redevelopment takes place.
“First Great Western are fully supportive of Newbury having this facility at the right time and to fit into other plans for the station area.”
A spokesman for First Great Western, James Davis, said: “The stations where the charging points will be installed were chosen on a number of factors.
“We assessed the customer demand, the number of people using it, how easy it was to install and the cost.”
There are more than 6,000 public chargepoints across the UK.
Councillor for Theale, Alan Macro, welcomed the news, saying: “I think it’s definitely a good thing for Theale and people that use the station.
“We are suffering from climate change, a lot of which is man made, so anything that reduces our footprint is good. I welcome the introduction of these devices.”
Electric car owners do not have to pay car tax or congestion charges and many chargepoints are free to use.
The government says cars cost from just 2p a mile, meaning a family that drives an electric vehicle 10,000 miles in a year would save around £1,000 on fuel costs.
However, the question has long been raised about how many people use the devices.
A Freedom of Information Act revealed that in the last three months of 2012, only 198 of the then existing 800 electric charging stations in London - 25 per cent - were used at all.