Nottingham council to open EV service centre

Nottingham City Council will open an electric vehicle (EV) service centre, following Oxford City Council who opened one last year.

Due to open later this summer, Nottingham Electric Vehicle Services (NEVS) will offer MOTs and servicing to customers across Nottingham as well as maintaining the council’s own growing ultra-low emission fleet.

The centre will cater for electric cars, vans and taxis, as well as specialist fleet such as street sweepers and cage tippers.

Councillor Adele Williams, Portfolio Holder for Transport, said: ‘NEVS will become an integral part of the electric infrastructure, helping to support the council’s ambition to be carbon neutral by 2028.

‘We have already achieved our energy strategy target of a 26% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, and we are on track to meet our 2020 target of 20% of energy generation from low carbon sources.

‘Nottingham Electric Vehicle Services will enable us to maintain both our own vehicles and offer these services out to other councils and businesses, providing a hub for electric vehicles in the East Midlands.

‘We want to provide this service to members of the public as well, and hope to roll this out later in the year — so our Eastcroft depot will be able to service and MOT electric vehicles in addition to petrol and diesel cars.’

The council is on target to convert 22% of its fleet to ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) by 2020 and the new service centre will allow the council’s fleet team to expand into a market which they say is currently ‘under-served and on the verge of rapid growth.’

In November, Nottingham City Council were the first local authority to have its air quality plan approved by government ministers — which confirmed that a Clean Air Zone will not be introduced in the city.

Instead, the plan focuses on improving the performance of the city’s council-owned bus fleet through a retrofit programme and addressing emissions from older, more polluting taxis through a funding plan.