Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston has questioned the Transport Secretary over the availability of charging points for electric cars across the Highlands and Islands.
After meeting with electric vehicle (EV) users at the Orkney Research and Innovation Campus in Stromness on Monday, the Scottish Conservative MSP raised their concerns that the current provision is often inadequate or unreliable.
Mr Halcro Johnston said: “With the popularity of electric vehicles only increasing, it is concerning that EV users are already concerned about the availability and reliability of the current infrastructure.
“EV owners were very clear that being confident of being able to access a charging point was extremely important to them, but that charging points were often unavailable because of limited capacity or because they were broken.
“This impacts on both local owners across the Highlands and Islands, but also those owners who are visiting our region and want to do so in their electric vehicles.
“Both the Scottish and the UK Governments want to see an increase in electric vehicles, both in the long-term but also in the short-term too. For that to be realistic, EV owners and users need to be confident that there is an infrastructure network across the country which meets their needs.
“It appears that there is some concern that the current infrastructure doesn’t always meet even current demands, and it’s clear that there is a lot more work to do here”.
