Not everyone is happy with electric car charging points in Thatcham
A number of electric car charging points have been earmarked for Thatcham.
Two roads in the town have been selected to have two charging points installed, each.
But not everybody is happy with them, says a Thatcham town councillor.
West Berkshire Council has recently signed a contract with Ubritricity to supply up to 250 5kW on-street charging points in the district for the next four years.
The first set of installations includes two streets for Thatcham, seven streets in Newbury, one in Theale and one for Tilehurst.
On these roads, a total of 25 charging points could be installed.
Malham Road and Stroller Close are the chosen sites for Thatcham.
However, some residents have been unhappy with the site allocation.
Speaking in a Thatcham Town Council planning and highways committee meeting, councillor Stephanie Steevenson (Lib Dem, Thatcham Central) said there have been numerous phone calls from people who are not happy with installations at Malham Road.
But she told the town council that the site came about as a request from a resident and commented that disagreements are inevitable with future site proposals.
“No decision has finally been made,” she said.
“You can’t please everybody all of the time.”
Councillor Tom McCann (Lib Dem, Thatcham Central) added: “There are 25 being proposed here.
“I would certainly hope that this is not down to some officer walking around the streets of West Berkshire saying ‘yeah I like that one’ I like this’ that will do’.
“I certainly hope it would be more sophisticated than that because all that really does is rub the residents up the wrong way for the wrong reasons.
“If we don’t get residential support for it, it will simply just not happen.”
The district council has an additional list of sites that have been identified by residents and parishes recently.
It says these will be assessed on a case-by-case basis for potential inclusion in future installation stages.
The charge points will be housed in standard bollards with an underground connection to the nearest lighting column.
Anybody with queries about the proposed sites or about the project as a whole can visit the On-Street Residents Electric Car Charge Points page for background information at https://www.westberks.gov.uk/onstreetev