STRATHROY – As electric vehicles continue to grow in popularity, the municipality of Strathroy-Caradoc is moving to accommodate those who are moving away from fossil fuels.
Councilors approved eight locations throughout the municipality for the installation of new vehicle charging ports during the April 19 regular council meeting.
The approved locations for the new charging ports are in both Strathroy and Mount Brydges and will include:
- Strathroy City Hall
- Mount Brydges Public Library
- Alexandra Park
- West Middlesex Memorial Center
- Strathroy-Caradoc Police Service
- Gemini Sportsplex
- Strathroy works yard
- Caradoc works yard
As part of the motions passed during the meeting, council agreed to contribute a total of $110,000 toward the project, while also being supported by $110,000 in funding from the Natural Resources Canada.
The project will see a total of 22 new ‘Level 2’ charging ports installed throughout the community, making them available to the public as well as the municipality, which is in the process of transitioning its fleet to electric vehicles.
According to community services director Robert Lilbourne, the chargers being bought can usually fully charge a vehicle in up to three hours. He said the public will be able to pay to use the chargers with debit or credit cards, and prices would be set so that they wouldn’t have a “negative effect” on the operating budget.
“Part of the idea with these chargers is that there’s a new type of tourism at the moment, and it’s EV charger tourism,” said Lilbourne. “People will go for a drive, and then they need to find a place to charge their vehicle. They find a spot, they plug it in, and then they go and shop for a couple of hours or visit different amenities in the community.”
Though Lilbourne said the municipal fleet has no electric vehicles on the roads, there are four that have been ordered for 2022.
Finance director Bill Dakin said the municipality is looking to replace administrative vehicles to begin the transition into electric vehicles before replacing utility vehicles such as trucks.
“This does allow (Strathroy-Caradoc) to start moving forward to further replacement,” said Dakin. “As vehicles become a candidate for replacement, we will be looking at electric.”
The project to install the new chargers throughout Strathroy-Caradoc is slated to be completed no later than Dec. 31, 2022.