Range anxiety

I’ve just bought an electric car. The plan was to wait until we moved into our new home, which with 10kW of photovoltaic panels, 20kW of battery storage and a 3-phase EV charger will make us pretty much energy self-sufficient. For now though, I’ll have to use public chargers and just as challenging, carefully manoeuvre the car into the garage of the house we’re renting while our new home takes shape.

So far I’ve found seven charging points in Leiston. One is at someone’s house and can be booked via Zapmap, two are at Revells removals, on the edge of town, and four sit in a line on the site of a former school near the town centre. These I’m told, for the exclusive use of Suffolk County Council and I suspect rarely used.

It would be easy to question the County Council’s commitment to Net Zero Leiston, when it chooses to invest in, but not share car charging points. But I’m more interested in the commercial opportunity that I suspect exists. Leiston could do with a share of the economic boost visitors holidaymakers bring to nearby Aldeburgh every year.

If Leiston town centre had a sensible number of 22Kw car chargers, people on holiday along this piece of coastline would find the town a convenient place to charge their cars and each time they visit, have around two hours to visit the Long Shop Museum, shop, visit a café or see a film at the cinema.

Perhaps it’s my experience of social and community enterprise that makes this appear such an obvious opportunity. Crowdfunding and sponsorship could make this possible. It just needs the right people to ask the right questions and perhaps create a new community business to deliver the project.