By Bill Heaney
Members of the public report a fault with electric vehicle charging points almost every hour of the day, recent figures have revealed.
This news has been revealed just days after The Democrat disclosed that a number of these vehicles have been lying doing nothing in the car park of West Dunbartonshire Council.
It’s said that the former SNP administration bought these “pugs” as a vanity project to make themselves look good on climate change prior to the COP26 conference in the SECC at Glasgow two years ago.
The new Labour administration have been left with this very expensive hospital pass sitting on their doorstep.
What they intend to do with them, we have no idea since the Council communications department refuse to answer our questions unless we go through the discredited Freedom off Information process set up by the SNP.
Between November 2021 and October 2022 there were 7,977 complaints lodged by users across Scotland, the equivalent of 21.8 per day.
These statistics were published following a parliamentary question by Scottish Conservative MSP Maurice Golden.
In her response, transport minister Jenny Gilruth, pictured above right, revealed the monthly list of faults compiled by ChargePlace Scotland – following calls from members of the public. It revealed hundreds of instances each month.
It’s the latest revelation exposing issues with EV charging points across the country.
A separate question by the North East MSP showed more than 800,000 hours of downtime for charge points in Scotland over the past year.
Scottish Conservative MSP Maurice Golden said: “It’s clear, and commendable, that people across Scotland want to do their bit for the environment by using electric cars.
“But those who do so are having to report faults with an infrastructure that’s been appallingly served by this SNP-Green Government.
“There is absolutely no point in ministers pushing the importance of electric vehicles – and implementing policies to discourage the use of petrol and diesel cars – if the capacity to properly charge them isn’t there.
“And these figures almost certainly understate the extent of the problem, as many road users simply won’t have the time to report the faults they encounter.
“If the Scottish Government doesn’t take immediate action to improve this, the overall objective to clean up the country’s roads will be severely jeopardised.”