South Ayrshire to miss 2025 deadline for electric vehicles
dailyrecord.co.ukSouth Ayrshire Council will miss the 2025 deadline to transform its vehicle fleet from petrol and diesel to electric.Officials say that underdeveloped technology, costs and difficulty accessing external funding have impacted South Ayrshire’s programme, which was agreed in May 2021.The target date is part of the Scottish Government’s ‘Mission Zero for Transport’.
The last administration agreed an action plan up to 2026 which included the establishment of a programme to transfer to an Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV) fleet by 2025 for vehicles under 3500kg and ensure all large vehicles are ULEV by 2030.
In a report to next week’s Service and Partnerships Performance Panel Kenny Dalrymple, assistant director for housing and operations, states: “Although progress has been made since the approval of the strategy it has not been at the rate first envisaged.”He points to barriers to meeting the 2025 target of all small vehicles being Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV)’ , including the ability to access external funding for fleet renewal and associated infrastructure.His report continues: “Whilst a programme for the replacement of Fleet has been identified, the council will be unable to meet the Scottish Government target of all small vehicles being ULEV by 2025.“This is due to a number of factors, such as technology not being fully developed for vehicles nearer the 3.5 tonne range, such as pick-ups.”He added that purchasing a small electric van was now around 50 percent more expensive that petrol or diesel equivalents.When the strategy was agreed in 2021, there were 292 vehicles to be replaced with ULEVs by 2025.A further 51 heavy vehicles and minibuses would be subject to a later target date of 2030.The council says it has
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