A bid to create electric vehicle car clubs across Wales has been handed a major funding boost by the National Lottery. The Charge Up Wales project, which will set up the schemes in numerous communities, will benefit from almost £500,000.
Seven new community-owned car clubs will be established. It is hoped the initiative will significantly reduce carbon emissions across Wales, provide more transport and connection opportunities for those without cars, and help families on lower incomes.
Clubs will be started in the communities of Brecon, Crickhowell, Upper Amman Valley, Kilgetty and Llanteg, Pennard, Pen Llyn, and Penygroes and Llanfyrnach. They will link up with existing car clubs as part of a campaign to create a Wales-wide network.
Community Energy Wales, the leading partner of the project, stated that this was a chance to “create community solutions to cut carbon emissions and play our part in the fight against the climate disaster.”
The National Lottery said that they were “proud” to support the project and described it as a “powerful way to engage communities all over Wales”.
The national shared transport charity Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK) hailed the funding award which will “create greener transport opportunities in rural communities”. CoMoUK is one of the partner organisations that will help deliver the project.
Other organisations involved in the project are The Green Valleys, Community Energy Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire Energy, Datblygiadau Egni Gwledig, Awel Aman Tawe, Cwm Arian Renewables, CTA Cymru and TrydaNi. Rising numbers of people across Britain signing up to car clubs has led to almost 100,000 private vehicles being taken off the road, recent research from CoMoUK revealed.
It found that on average across Britain each car club vehicle results in 18.5 private cars being replaced.