WELLINGTON Town Council is to investigate the possibility of introducing more charging points for electric vehicles in the area.

Members of the council’s environment committee briefly discussed the topic at their meeting on February 19.

Cllr Mark Lithgow, who chaired the meeting, said: “Electric charging points are woefully in short supply around the country and those that are about aren’t always working.”

Cllr Sean Pringle-Kosikowsky said that although he did support the use of electric vehicles from an environmentally-friendly point of view, he did have one big concern about creating more charging points for them.

“My only objection is that the charging points will take away actual car parking spaces,” he said. “We need to be looking at car parks as a whole.”

Cllr Lithgow added: “This is still early days for us to be looking at this. But there are very few places under our control as a town council where could actually put electric vehicle charging points in – in fact, I can’t think of anywhere.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to tarmac over areas of the Green Corridor in order to put in charging points.”

Cllr Lithgow suggested that the council worked with other business organisations in the town to see if they might be able to help as possible locations for electric vehicles to get charged up.

Councillors agreed to look in more detail at the possibility of supporting electric vehicles and investigate opportunities.

There are electric vehicle charging facilities in the North Street car park in Wellington, for example, which is owned by Somerset Council.

Town councillors said they would not be overly keen to fund charging points located in Somerset Council owned car parks.

Sales of electric vehicles are increasing which means that the number of charging points also need to increase to cater for demand.