Officials from the Government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles recently made a presentation to Defra’s Rural Impact Forum to update on progress and future programmes relating to support for electric vehicle charging point. The RSN is a member of that Forum – meetings now being held monthly.

To be in place from 2022 (date and full details to be announced) there will be two new schemes which may be of interest to RSN members:

Workplace Charging Scheme

• B&B’s, campsites and similar small accommodation businesses will be able to use if for guests and visitors,
• Charities will be able to apply for any use (e.g. visitors), think village halls, sport centres and tourist sites

Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme

• In 2022 it will re-focus to support people in flats and rental accommodation:
• Public and private sector landlords may apply in 2022
• Additional fund for residential apartment blocks.

We will provide a link to the details once we are aware of them

Revitalising Rural: Realising the Vision is a campaign led by the Rural Services Network to challenge Government on a number of policy areas that affect rural communities.

The campaign features on a number of topics which are pertinent across rural communities and one of these areas is 'Decarbonising Rural Communities'.

The campaign details how the impacts of dangerous climate change will affect all communities. This much is already clear from the rural impacts of increasingly frequent storm damage, flood events and periods of drought. Minimising man-made climate change matters as much to rural communities and businesses as it does to any others.

Rural areas, which host more than a sixth of England’s population and which cover most of its land area, must play their full part if the UK is to rapidly reduce its carbon footprint and achieve its net zero target.

One of the asks in the Decarbonising Rural Communities chapter of the Revitalising Rural campaign which is relevant to the above news story is shown below:

Electric vehicle charging: the funding recently announced by Government to make quicker progress with rolling out rapid charging infrastructure is welcome. It must, however, be used to improve the network of public charging points across rural areas (including those areas distant from motorways or trunk roads). Drivers in rural areas are more likely to travel further and gaps in the network are a practical constraint given typical ranges of e-vehicles.