Winchester City Council’s all-electric fleet of housing vehicles
Fully electric fleet helps put council on course to meet its aim of becoming carbon neutral by the end of this year.
Winchester City Council, in Hampshire, has replaced the last two petrol-powered vehicles in its housing fleet with new electrically powered vans, meaning the entire fleet of five vehicles are now electric.
Photograph courtesy of Winchester City Council
Five EVs might not sound that many but the council estimates that between them they’ll save 6 tonnes of carbon emissions per year – equivalent to boiling a kettle some 85,000 times!
The vans can be charged using 100% renewable energy at the council’s city offices, which are supplied by a REGO-certified renewable energy tariff. The fleet can also power up at the city’s Barfield Park and Ride car park, which provides EV charging points powered by both on-site solar panels and renewable energy from the national grid.
This is just one of many green initiatives being pursued by Winchester City Council. In June 2019, the council declared a climate emergency and set itself two ambitious targets: to itself be a carbon-neutral organisation by the end of 2024, and to make Winchester a carbon-neutral district by 2030. It published a carbon neutrality action plan (CNAP) in January 2020.
Today (August 1, 2024) also sees the reopening of its ‘Go Greener Faster’ grant scheme for not-for-profit organisations across the district. Sums of between £5,000 and £10,000 are available to help such organisations and the communities they support become more sustainable and reduce energy use and emissions.
Last week, the council’s Carbon Neutrality Open Forum welcomed a range of speakers to explore nature-based schemes to help tackle the climate emergency. You can catch up with the session on the council’s You Tube channel. Earlier this month, the council announced that all 20 of its BIFFA-operated waste and recycling vehicles have switched to switched their fuel from diesel to greener hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), expected to save some 600 tonnes of carbon per year and reduce carbon emissions by 80%.
Of the new, all-electric fleet of housing vehicles, Cllr Kelsie Learney, Cabinet Member for the Climate Emergency at Winchester City Council, says: ‘Low and zero carbon transport are key to our commitment to go greener faster, and I’m really proud that we now have a fully electric fleet for our housing team.
‘Our clean energy supplies at our city offices and Barfield Park & Ride mean the vans can be powered completely by renewable sources – that’s a huge carbon saving and a big step towards becoming a carbon neutral council.’
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