AROUND 100 new electric vehicle fast-charging points could be created across North Yorkshire under plans from the county council.

The £1m North Yorkshire Electric Vehicle Charge Point Network project aims to install the capacity for electric cars at around 38 locations in publicly accessible car parking spaces across the county.

If successful, it would ensure that drivers in North Yorkshire are never more than 10 miles from a charge point.

The county council is putting together an application to bid for more than £500,000 in funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which has more than £17m available for low carbon initiatives in North Yorkshire, Leeds, York and East Riding.

A report prepared for the county council’s Business and Environmental Services Executive members outlines how the project would work.

It states: “The majority of the charge points will be sited in public off-street car parks within North Yorkshire’s key towns and tourist hotspots including National Park visitor car parks to ensure provision in more remote locations.

“The project will also enable an on-street charging trial to be implemented at towns across the county.”

The current project cost is estimated at £1,160,000 with £580,000 coming from local councils, with contributions of between £5,000 and £60,000 coming from the county’s district councils of Craven, Selby, Scarborough, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire and Ryedale.

The project includes charge point infrastructure and installation, associated signage, lining, traffic regulation orders and promotional activity.

In June last year, a county council report found that North Yorkshire, England’s largest county, had just 34 charge points, many of which were not readily available to the general public.

Cllr Don Mackenzie, the executive member for access, said he was “extremely in favour” of the project.

He said: “We do have half a dozen air quality management areas in North Yorkshire and, with the exception of Staithes, all of those issues are caused by vehicle emissions and encouraging the use of electric vehicles will go a long way to solving those problems.

“One of the biggest factors that disaudes people from buying an all-electric vehicle as opposed to a hybrid is that he or she thinks they could have a problem charging it up.

"Hopefully, this project takes away one more reason for not buying an electric car.”

If the funding bid is successful, work on installing the charging points would begin in June 2021 with an anticipated end date of March the following year.