Call to give Bo’ness attractions more of a spark with more electric vehicle charging points

With Scotland coming out of the coronavirus lockdown and businesses getting back on their feet, Councillor Lynn Munro (Con) wants to see more done to entice visitors to the area to enjoy local tourist attractions such as Kinneil House, Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway and Bo’ness Motor Museum, and believes having more electric car charging points would really help.

At present there are two rapid charging bays and two fast charging bays available in Bo’ness town centre. A further two fast charging bays will be installed in the town centre this year, along with two fast charging bays at Bo’ness Recreation Centre.

Cllr Munro said: “There are not enough charging points in Bo’ness. The logical places to have them would be places like Kineil or the railway. The key places that people come to visit.

“When we have tourist facilities like the railway or at Kinneil, which has 2,000 years of history at the museum and house, it seems ironic that we lack charging points if we are moving towards encouraging people to visit these places.

“It seems odd that the railway doesn’t have any points, when they have 70/80,000 visitors a year. It doesn’t encourage tourists to come here.

“Now we are over the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak we really need to focus on tourism, hospitality and retail, as the people employed in these sectors are people in ethnic minorities, women and young people leaving school.

“I think there are lots of basic things we need to do to encourage tourists back to our area. Electric car charging points is an obvious and easy thing to do.

“Especially with grants available. We should be all working together. I would encourage local attractions to apply for funding.

“Right now we all need to focus on doing things that help the industries that are most vulnerable post-covid.

“It’s about trying support things evenly and encourage things to come back to normality. We are selling far more electric cars now, so if we don’t have the facilities why would people come there?”

There are 64 operational charging bays throughout the Falkirk Council area, with a further 164 bays due to be operational by spring 2021.

Cllr Munro added: “I know the council had some grants last year but I don’t know if they are still available. We need to look at these things and work to ensure that all communities are kept abreast of these things. I’m sure if the community council here knew about it they would have applied.

“I think we are at risk of being left behind. It’s important we as communities think long-term. It’s not just about the green agenda. It’s about common sense. Charging points will be a basic necessity going forward.

“We are moving towards the need in terms of climate in the future, all the outcomes are positive, so we should be doing everything we can to ensure these facilities are made available by whatever means.

“We should encourage businesses and local residents to access any possible grants as widely as they can.”

A Falkirk Council spokesperson said:“Falkirk Council is fully supportive of the Scottish Government’s commitment to expand the local network of public electric vehicle charging points in strategic locations, and we are always looking to expand the charging network throughout the entire council area.

“We have been extremely successful in securing funding from a wide range of sources such as Transport Scotland and the European Regional Development Fund. This funding is for the installation of public charging points in local authority owned sites across the council area.

“It is up to individual businesses, such as tourist destinations, to provide charging points at their sites, however the council can assist local businesses in identifying potential funding opportunities that may be available for the provision of electric vehicle chargers.”