Scarborough Council applies for 102 new electric car charging points as demand grows across Yorkshire Coast

Members of the authority's Places and Futures Overview and Scrutiny Committee were told that 60 of the charging bays will be located in Scarborough, 24 in Whitby, six in Filey and another 12 across other villages.

All of the new electric vehicle charging bays will be installed by contractor Connected Kerb Ltd in council-owned car parks.

The funding application is part of the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme to which the Government has allocated £20 million of funding between 2022 and 2023.

As part of its climate change strategy, Scarborough Council has also successfully transitioned 65 per cent of its fleet to use hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuel, with "a majority" of the diesel fleet now on HVO.

Of the approximately 56,000 cars and vans registered in the borough, only 284 are plug-in electric vehicles or hybrids, although the figure is set to rise in the coming years as sales of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK must end by 2030.

The number of public electric vehicle charge points in the borough is currently very low, an issue being raised more often by residents and visitors to the borough.

According to a report also presented to the committee's meeting on Wednesday June 15, Scarborough has the lowest per capita carbon dioxide emissions in North Yorkshire.

The average carbon dioxide emissions, which are measured in tons, are lower in Scarborough at 4.4t per capita than North Yorkshire's 6.0t, and lower than the national average of 5.2t.

Scarborough Council's climate change manager Harry Baross said the emissions were the "lowest on record which is always delightful to see".

"It's great to see our region leading the way on that," he added.

Committee members were also updated on measures being taken to try and minimise energy use within private properties in Scarborough, with a scheme "set to deliver 113 measures to improve local properties as part of Scarborough's £980,000 allocation" of a wider North Yorkshire County Council programme.

Cllr Paul Riley brought up the issue of retrofitting and making older houses more energy efficient. He asked whether "at this stage, it's very early days in developing techniques for decarbonising rural and Victorian homes?

"Because they seem inclined to start with social housing, which is fairly basic but still immensely expensive."

Mr Baross responded by saying that "one of the key things we've done in this project so far is look at how the costs differ with some of the [older] houses that we're focusing on.

"A lot of the older properties don't have cavity walls that you can quite easily fill, so there's a huge cost uplift there. There are other similar problems associated with the heritage factor and restrictions around external wall insulation."

Scarborough Council is also working to identify and support climate change initiatives on a regional level prior to next year's local government reorganisation which will see North Yorkshire Council replace current county and borough councils.