Currently reading: 15,000 free parking spaces for electric vehicles created in Milton Keynes

Go Ultra Low Cities funding used to encourage the uptake of EVs in Buckinghamshire town

Fifteen thousand free electric vehicle-only parking spaces have been created in Milton Keynes.

The scheme is the first in a series of UK initiatives designed to give people more reason to buy electric vehicles, and was funded using the Government 'Go Ultra Low Cities' funding.

The parking spaces come as the first part of a several stage plan for Milton Keynes, which includes adding charging hubs that can fast charge some EVs in just 30mins, destination chargers that are located at places such as residential areas, restaurants and shops, and giving EVs access to bus lanes in the town.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said: “The Go Ultra Low Cities grant will also help to create an Electric Vehicle Experience Centre in the city.

“We are investing £600 million in cleaner, greener vehicles by 2020 to improve air quality, create jobs and achieve our goal of every car and van in the UK being zero-emissions by 2050.”

The other cities involved in this new EV initiative are Bristol, London and Nottingham, with each receiving £40 million in funding to encourage residents to buy and use EVs. Milton Keynes is the first to allocate much of its grant money to such a large-scale scheme.

Earlier this week, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced plans to introduce an emissions-tackling 'T-charge' in central London. Unlike the Milton Keynes scheme, however, it doesn’t directly reward EV drivers for driving zero-emissions vehicles, instead penalising drivers of high-emissions vehicles.

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Scratch 8 July 2016

Empty space

Why do spaces have to be created anyway? Some context in the article regarding numbers of EV on the road in whole of UK would have been nice too. Is it 75,000? Cannot imagine they will all flock to MK just yet. Since it seems everything to know about a vehicle can be obtained from the registration number, surely it is just a case of nil charge applies to EV wherever they are parked in (well-signed) subscribing car parks/roads?
Deputy 8 July 2016

Park anyway

Based on the handful of electric parking bays near me, I expect they will just be used by drivers of old Range Rover Sports anyway, regardless of what the signs say.
rjp1968 8 July 2016

Misleading title - it's a big con

This is misleading...what they are doing is giving free permits to cars with emissions under 75 gco2. Already, there is a green permit scheme which costs around £75 pa for <100 gco2

There is no change to the parking availability - you won't actually be able to park because the eligible spaces are already over-subscribed unless you turn up at 7:30am

The existing EV bays are so badly signed that it is impossible to enforce tickets so they are full of non-EV cars anyway.

Assuming there are a thousand EVs that regularly park (reality is much less), they are basically subsidising £75,000 - wonder where the millions are going?

All a big con really....benefits only the professional "grant miners"