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The biggest towns without a rapid charge point. I nominate Whitby

17K views 210 replies 50 participants last post by  Vectensian 
#1 ·
Whitby doesn't have a rapid charger. There's plenty of market towns in North Yorkshire smaller than Whitby that do have at least one. And Whitby every year gets more important as a tourist destination!

Looking on Zap map I see underpopulated Norfolk is splattered with rapid chargers. Villages, not towns, I've never heard of have them. How is this explained?
 
#8 ·
Perhaps the logic is that Whitby is a 'destination' when viewed as a tourist orientated town rather than purely residential. As such, then the usual long stay destination chargers would be more relevant. Also, that many people staying at cottages and the like would use leads from the property. Whitby cannot be regarded as a stopping off place for cars passing through on longer road trips and thus would not require Rapid service. A case can be made for cars leaving at the end of a holiday, but once again they will probably be able to fill overnight at their accommodation.
 
#23 ·
I used to stay regularly at Burniston near Scarborough and most weekends we were there we’d pop to Whitby for a drink and a walk about.

It was pretty difficult finding a parking space at all at times, never mind one with a charger!

The car park down to the Marina would be ideal for a few rapids and a couple of dozen destination chargers.

I’m sure Instavolt would happily lease a bit of land and make the necessary investment without the council having to spend any money.

So short sighted some councils.
 
#28 ·
Exactly. And with the well known physical limitations over parking in the town itself, a Rapid down there would instantly be hogged by a self-entitled driver bagging a parking space rather than needing a full charge. And probably leave it plugged in all day rather than leave when full and do battle with the rest of the people roaming around searching for a parking spot. A Rapid at the P&R along with a dozen destination chargers would be the solution.
 
#26 ·
I'll throw in Burnham-On-Sea & Highbridge. 25,000 population and just the 7kW chargers at Tesco. Right on a motorway junction and has plenty of holiday traffic too.

For additional points you have Bridgwater that is 40,000+ that just has a Morrison genie point.
 
#37 ·
I was interested to make a comparison to where I live in SW London - population 61,000. This borough has been dragging its feet over EV infrastructure compared to some parts of London but we still have:
x2 175 kW Shell
x5 175kW MFG being installed right now
x3 50kW Osprey and BP
x20 7kW Podpoint free to use chargers at supermarkets (time restricted to 2 hours). Sainsbury has 16 of those, Tesco 4.
100 Ubitricity 3.5kW lamp post chargers dotted throughout the area were installed in 2021 by the council/Ubictricity. The charge points were installed with financial assistance from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) working with London’s Go Ultra Low Cities Scheme (GULCS), which is managed by London Councils, Transport for London and supported by the Mayor of London.

We also have free resident parking permits for all EVs.

Clearly you would expect towns with 30,000 to 40,000 population to have considerably more than zero chargers but a lot of the infrastructure is being provided by super markets and traditional fuel providers so perhaps their focus is on areas where EV penetration is highest or some other logic dictates the decisions.
 
#43 ·
East Herts is pretty dire. Ware (16,000) and Hertford (27,000) have 7kW dotted around and the fastest in the area is a free 22kW AC at Aldi in Hertford but not many cars can use it to its full potential, super the the ZOE though! 😁
 
#46 ·
Question is… are we passed the point of this being something councils should be doing? Encouraging, yes… but is the problem nobody wants to install chargers in these locations or the planning process isn’t supporting it?

I guess in the absence of anything the council should step up and do… something. In the case of Scarborough Borough Council they’ll likely cock it up. I notice the destination chargers available in Pickering car parks (different district council) have a four hour limit and you have to pay for parking. If they did that somewhere like Whitby park and ride it would be entirely useless.
 
#56 ·
Tell me about it! We did a day trip from our Airbnb (where we couldn't charge) to Whitby last Sept and really needed a charge in our Model 3. We used the 7kW point at Aldi and got bus into town for a few hours. We did buy food and booze at Aldi so didn't feel guilty, but crazy we needed to resort to such plans. With days like that I do struggle sometimes to justify encouraging family and friends to buy a BEV :rolleyes:
 
#79 · (Edited)
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