Electric vehicle charge points are now live in car parks in Wimborne’s King Street and the Hub in Vewood in addition to those in Wollaston Field in Dorchester, Gas Lane in Gillingham and Old Market yard in Sherborne.

Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council’s portfolio holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said, “Dorset has an important role to play in helping to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.

“We’re committed to becoming a carbon-neutral council by 2040 at the latest, and making other changes needed to help the whole of Dorset become carbon-neutral by 2050. Providing drivers with more charge points for their electric vehicles is an exciting step towards this.

“The government plans to phase out sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, so it is important drivers are offered more sustainable travel options now.

Cllr Bryan continued, “We are grateful to Joju Charging and their partners Grønn Kontakt for funding both the installation and management of this scheme and for their enthusiasm and hard work in getting us to this stage.”

A quick top-up (a charge of 15 minutes) will enable a journey of about 15 miles, or a full charge will take two-four hours, depending on the vehicle.

Further chargepoints will be switched on in the coming weeks at other Dorset Council sites. They are: Langton Road, Blandford Forum, DT11 7DZ, Fairfield long stay, Dorchester, DT1 1QW, Holmbush, Lyme Regis, DT7 3HX, Bell Street, Shaftesbury, SP7 8AP, Coldharbour, Sherborne, DT9 4HA, Potters Wheel, Manor Way, Verwood, BH31 7AQ, Rempstone Centre, Wareham, BH20 4NX, West Bay Road, West Bay, DT6 4EL, Governor’s Lane, Weymouth, DT4 8DD, Melcombe Regis, Weymouth, DT4 7DW, Swannery, Weymouth, DT4 7TY, Westfield Close, Wimborne Minster, BH21 1ES

See the locations of all Dorset’s charge points at www.zap-map.com

To use the charge points, download the Gronn Kontakt electric vehicle charging app from the Appstore or Google Play or visit gronnkontakt.co.uk

Two webinars are taking place this spring to help businesses find out more about electric vehicles.

The first will take place on Tuesday 30 March at 11.30am and will last for approx 90 minutes. Businesses will hear from the experts about EV fleets and there is time allocated where you can ask questions. The webinar will be recorded so if you are unable to attend, you can watch it at a later date. Find out more about the webinars.