North East's electric car plans accelerate

Sep 9 2009 by William Green, The Journal

A REGIONAL drive to become a global hub for electric cars today moves up a gear with a multi-million pound boost for a charging network.

The North East is already leading development of plug-in charging points and is a strong contender to make electric vehicles at Nissan’s plant in Washington.

And now the Government and industry chiefs have given a further vote of confidence by including the region in an £11m programme to help support the rollout of a single charging network nationwide for electric vehicles.

Business and political chiefs hailed news that Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are being included in the “Joined-Cities” plan unveiled by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a joint partnership between Government and industry.

Margaret Fay, chairman of development agency One North East, said the announcement was further recognition of the region’s leading role in developing low carbon vehicles. A number of important projects in this sector are now coming together in North East England, which is now to be embedded within the national network of cities.

“This will only help in accelerating the switch to clean transport, which in turn will help generate new investment and jobs within the region,” she added.

The news is also a major boost to The Journal’s Great North Revolution campaign to get the region’s economy fit for the future with experts declaring low carbon transport will be a major growth area.

The goal of the Joined Cities scheme is to make it easy to use plug-in cars and charge them anywhere, including at home.

Birmingham, Coventry, Glasgow, London, Oxford and Milton Keynes have also been included in the project.

Critically, it will build on work already under way in the region being carried out by a private-sector partnership led by One North East.