Axminster has the golden opportunity to boost its local economy by embracing the electric car revolution, councillors have been told.

During the public forum session at Monday's meeting of Axminster Town Council, Simon Smith from the Community Waffle House and Ian Styles, managing director of Axminster Property, developers of Axminster's most prominent town centre building, spoke about the opportunities of providing charging points for electric cars.

Their proposals got a sympathetic hearing from former mayor Paul Hayward, who now holds the Assets Portfolio for East Devon District Council, as well as being deputy leader.

The town council is now considering setting up a working group to explore the possibility to installing up to 30-40 charging points to attract drivers into the town which would boost trade while the drivers spent money in the local shops and cafes whilst their vehicles were charging.

It is estimated that it could bring in as much as £3.4million a year.

This is the full debate:

Simon Smith, Community Waffle House:

I have been an advocate of supporting Axminster ever since I moved in about ten years ago so I have always been looking how I can engage more. About two and a half years ago my wife and I decided to make the huge jump of driving fully electric and we never really looked back after that.

After doing that and racking up a lot of miles – I used to be a sports coach and did 1,500 miles a month –and it worked for me. I realised the huge potential in an area which is known as a bit of a charging desert. If I wanted to publicly charge my car we had to go to Lyme Regis so I saw there was obviously a need and having chatted to Ian (Styles) and a few others I realised there was a real need and potential for something to happen.

Brilliant opportunity

I've got to challenge us all as a town, so someone who is passionate about the community like me, and had experience of the huge benefits of going into the EV lifestyle, can we as a town use the incoming tide of electrical vehicles to further boost the prospects of Axminster. Unsurprisingly, my answer is a resounding yes. There is a brilliant opportunity in a small window of time to try and make this happen.

My suggestion is to make Axminster the home of reliable, plentiful electric car charging. You may ask why do this and the key word is EV tourism. We are very, very well placed just off the A30, linked to the A303 and M5, to tap into this rapidly growing sector.

For the past two and a half years I have been making regular lifestyle choices to eat, holiday and travel to places that cater for me as an EV driver. Millions of EV drivers are also making these decisions and many forward thinking towns and locations are already benefiting from having the infrastructure in place.

If Axminster can take the initiative the positive effects will ripple through our community. As a town council you could receive an income for charging for future proof car parking and make a real dent in auctioning some of your environmental crises.

What's become clear in Devon County Council's electric vehicle survey done last July is that many individuals are put off switching at the moment to EVs because of the lack of easy charging structure. There's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. We want to encourage and support our own residents to be prepared for when they too switch to EVs.

So here's the crux of the matter. EV growth is defying dropping car sales and growth is rapid. Let's actively pursue ways of getting Axminster on the map for all EV drivers coming to and through our area.

Real shot at thriving

If we want to maximise the impact and reap the benefits, then we need action at every level now. It starts here with town council so please be brave and help me give Axminster and real shot of thriving and not just surviving.

The Mayor, Cllr Jill Farrow:

I can't speak for the council but some of us would be absolutely delighted to do that. When we discussed this issue before our immediate stopping point was that Axminster Town Council, very sadly, has failed to take ownership of tranches of land in Axminster which we could use for this purpose. The bit of land which we have is the forecourt at the Guildhall which is too small to lend itself to have electric charging points.

However, there is great interest in what you say and I take note of the passion which you put it forward. I think we may well get back to you in due course.

Cllr Paul Hayward, Portfolio Holder for Assets at EDDC:

There are three schemes going at the moment to use East Devon assets, the car parks, for the installation of chargers. One of them is an extension of an Exeter-based project which has been rolled out and widened and I am hoping if all goes to plan on Wednesday, March 17th there will be a report to East Devon's Cabinet recommending the roll out of that extension scheme which could see up to 30 chargers installed across East Devon's car assets, three of which would be in Axminster.

I understand there is nil charge. It's one of these commercial public sector tie-ins which Mid Devon has done very successfully so the commercial sector pays the capital for it by doing all the infrastructure and East Devon earns revenue for giving up car parking spaces for traditional cars. There have been many discussions at East Devon that if we don't get on board now we will end up in five, ten, 20 years' time, with lots of car parks when petrol and diesel cars cease to be an option. They will be taxed and legislated off the roads.

The Mayor:

Is there anything we can do to say can Axminster have a half-dozen of these because we have a lot of cars parks?

No time like the present

Cllr Hayward:

It comes down to investment, a joint offering between the commercial sector and the public sector to provide solar arrays which will also help towards the cost of powering EV chargers. We are a long way behind Europe. They have been doing this for a long time. There is no time like the present. It comes down to cost. East Devon are the asset holder.

The town council as a sovereign authority could enter into an agreement if you so wish to lease EV bays. There is nothing to stop the town council going down this route. It's logical that it needs partnerships to do it. There is a huge pent-up demand for EV chargers. We want Axminster to capture the tourists because when they are here they stop 45 minutes to an hour to charge that vehicle. That means they can walk around are shops, eat in our restaurants, drink in our cafes and walk around everything we have to offer. You got to start somewhere and hopefully next Wednesday we can start the ball rolling and the town council jump on that bandwagon.

The Mayor:

Let's put 'bandwagoning' on the agenda for the next meeting.

Simon Smith:

What Paul is suggesting is great. We need to approach this in a multi-faceted way. We need to encourage our local district and county council to get on board and do more for us and tackle this on a local level as well. This is not the right time to sit on our hands and wait for this to happen for us.

I have done of lot of research and leg work and started building relationships with charging companies and the viability of different sites in Axminster. Ian (Styles) has been pricing up putting just 24 spaces in and what that could do for the economy and it's a very handsome figure. We just can't poke our toe in the water and hope that's going to do the trick because. We have got to do this properly. I'd love to be part of a team in Axminster that takes this on further.

Cllr Jeremy Walden:

Thirty charging points would be totally inadequate for the whole district. It's ludicrous we should consider this. In Axminster the idea we would have space in the council car parks for six chargers is woefully inadequate and doesn't think forward at all. At some stage most of the car park spaces will be occupied by electric vehicles.

Ian Styles:

I think my concern is that we are seeing a service station on the A35 which will have 40 or 50 charging points. Gathering the money from a 40-minute wait, we are not going to see. We need enough charging points for local people to enjoy their use. Forty per cent of those who own electric cars do not have the ability to charge their cars from home so public charging is going to be very important.

What we have to do is put in the infrastructure for local people. The window of opportunity exists right now. With 20 to 30 charging points in excess of what we are talking about for locals, Axminster becomes that services we would see on the A35. There's lots of space, farmland, along the A35 where people could pull in and it becomes an electric service station.

The A35 is a busy road and unfortunately Axminster is the conduit from the M5 and A303. That's why the town is suffering. We need to stop that, we need to divert the traffic in a better route, not through our town centre. What we have to attract is for people to come and park and charge and spend 45 minutes in the town in stores and shops. If you charged for six hours, roughly in a 24-hour day, two people in a car just waiting en-route, that brings in £3.4million to the town. That's a huge amount of money that goes into small traders and small shops and starts to create an income, absolutely to keep all our shops and cafes to progress further.

I really have to urge to not to look at tiny pieces of land the council might own. Trinity Square possibly has places for 12 charging points. The Guildhall has the potential for six charging points.

This is the time when we are going to see some change. It we don't take this opportunity, someone else will and I just feel we need a working party to look actively at this and really grasp the nettle and we become that service station where people pull in and say "you know, it's great to stop in Axminster, plenty of shops, plenty of parking and there's lots of available chargers". We have a different technology on our doorstep. We have the opportunity to be an unusual town.

Cllr Hayward:

East Devon own the three primary car parks and I have been urging them to take a leaf out of Mid Devon District Council because for me it's a complete no brainer, Yes. you suffer loss but the economic benefit of drawing people into East Devon on their route Cornwall and the coast, you capture that money. There's benefit for the local economy as well. It's nice to see people walking around our lovely town. However, it is not something that can be done overnight.

Axminster Town Council is a sovereign authority and can work with the higher authority to talk about what can be done. I would be delighted to work with the council to bring about what you want, what East Devon wants and what the world needs because we can't carry on the way we are.

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