Save the planet or . . .

Hopefully because their old vans had all broken down and were un fixable.
It’s pointless binning perfectly useable equipment.

Let’s hope they don’t all catch fire.

It sounds like just the sort of thing some local authorities would do, polishing their green credentials whilst putting up council tax and cutting back on services.

Oops daisy- why would they catch fire? Petrol/diesel cars are more likely to catch fire than evs. Sounds like a good move to me.

Because the Lithium Batteries are almost impossible to put out, ‘normal’ vehicle fires can be put out by Fire crews or a fire extinguisher in the vehicle.

Maybe an Urban Myth, but a friend was telling me that a local council bought a fleet of electric vans to trial, but hadn’t realised the workmen
would need home charging points - an extra outlay.
I understand Durham Constabulary bought an electric BMW - it couldn’t manage enough charge to get it from one end of the County to the other, if it was fully loaded with equipment.

That wouldn’t surprise me. I have found local authorities to be singularly inept at managing money.

Our local council bought commercial properties, then found they could not rent many of them out.

They are now cutting essential services and putting up council tax.

They are telling us to "try and walk for short journeys, and reduce carbon while getting fit at the same time!"
"find out about local cycle routes and cycling groups and get on your bike."

And have bought several new electric vehicles for Council plus are piloting 20 new hydrogen-powered vehicles.

It may well be that the council were leasing the vans at a lower cost than the alternative diesel vans, initial purchase will be more but running cost and servicing a lot less. For short journeys in an urban area they should be a big step forward.

Wales?
Labour run?

Sheesh.

Urmstongran

Wales?
Labour run?

Sheesh.

It's ok, I think we'll be back to horse and carriage here soon, as it's all 20mph anyway.

Callistemon21

Urmstongran

Wales?
Labour run?

Sheesh.

It's ok, I think we'll be back to horse and carriage here soon, as it's all 20mph anyway.

Horses produce almost as much methane as cattle, so do not help the planet at all.

Germanshepherdsmum

It sounds like just the sort of thing some local authorities would do, polishing their green credentials whilst putting up council tax and cutting back on services.

Except equality/diversity spending, I bet!

The council I worked for for quite a while was endlessly pleading poverty while still spending on ‘frills’ - one thing I particularly remember was piles of glossy, full-colour postcards, inviting people to put themselves on the arts mailing list.
Then there was a glossy magazine, distributed to every household in the borough, that was basically council PR and ads. It cost the same to produce as running a small and well-used local library they were planning to close.

And of course every single employee had to undergo ‘training’ in Equality/Diversity, and Health and Safety.

Said training was online, and provided by some outside company. I never did find out what it cost, but it was a complete joke. Both parts took a max of 20 minutes and consisted of a lot of multiple choice questions, 4 per question, IIRC, and if you got one wrong it came back with a cheery, ‘Not quite r

Oops,
‘Not quite right, try again!’
But never mind, we were all ‘trained’ - the box was ticked.

We have received two of these glossy magazines just this week - one from the county council and the other from the district. They contained very little useful information. I can’t imagine what they must cost to produce and distribute (via the postman - I doubt the PO provide the service for free). The useful information - phone numbers for different services - could have been put on a black and white A4 sheet.

Glasgow City Council brought in uULEZ requirements and started fining people if their vehicle weren’t compliant only to discover most of their own vehicles weren’t compliant

Of more concern is the latest wheeze by ‘our’ ever surprising NHS to introduce electric ambulances and the £3m bill for staff to implement it just for starters. The implications for charging times, greater delays etc is very concerning. Until these obstacles are addressed, not to mention the waiting lists, staff shortages, lack of hospital beds, A&E waiting times, failing Trusts and all the other multiple problems the NHS is facing, I wonder if this is a priority? Better to cull those in five figure salaries and meaningless managerial roles, I think!

£10k is a five figure salary. Did you mean six figure? I agree that there are too many managers but you need to pay well into six figures for a good manager.

Our council tax is a huge bill of which over more than half goes to lancashire county council and yet our little valley gets bins, rents, roads,bus passes, blue badges etc all run by very small nearby town-we get NOTHING from L.C.C.- so why is a huge chunk of my council tax going to fund a council i get nothing from?while our small town council gets £234 out of it- and local parish get only £24? Its bl**dy daylight robbery is what that is. Even buses & trains in our area (of which there are very few) are under the 'greater manchester' umbrella not L.C.C. so why are they getting a lot of our cash?

What weird comments! The improvement in air quality (bad air kills) plus less carbon - good for your council! And they dare to keep plugging the arts? Guess some think only hair shirts will do. Goodness, try running something as complex as a council or an NHS trust…

LCC are the authority responsible for education, highways, social services, libraries and many more things throughout the county. Maybe you don’t make use of all those things but others do. You can’t pay only for the services that you use. Your ‘little town’ is actually a district council responsible for other services on a more local level.

Seems to me that local authorities suffer from (1) elected councillors of all parties who are lacking in knowledge (except how to sound good to get elected), (2) officers who are poorly educated in how to run services, (3) underfunding by central government, and (4) difficulty in balancing short term needs against long term needs (e.g., adult social care against climate change).

Just as we have a poor cadre of national politicians of all parties at present so we seem to have a dearth of really competent people at local level.

Probably this is in part due to a decline in the number of workers but perhaps also to a failing educational system at primary and secondary level.

Outsourcing services to the private sector does not seem to be a success in general though our bin collection is pretty good.

An elderly neighbour told me that if 3 people in our close all charged their evs overnight there wouldn't be enough electricity for the rest of us!

granfromafar

Oops daisy- why would they catch fire? Petrol/diesel cars are more likely to catch fire than evs. Sounds like a good move to me.

This is just not true I'm afraid. We heard the other day about an EV being involved in an accident and the fire service said how difficult it was to get people out of the cars or move them because of the risk of fire.

Nannan2

Our council tax is a huge bill of which over more than half goes to lancashire county council and yet our little valley gets bins, rents, roads,bus passes, blue badges etc all run by very small nearby town-we get NOTHING from L.C.C.- so why is a huge chunk of my council tax going to fund a council i get nothing from?while our small town council gets £234 out of it- and local parish get only £24? Its bl**dy daylight robbery is what that is. Even buses & trains in our area (of which there are very few) are under the 'greater manchester' umbrella not L.C.C. so why are they getting a lot of our cash?

Lancashire County Council is responsible for:

Child and adult social care
Public health
Fire and Rescue
Road maintenance and safety
School transport
Planning applications
Libraries, archives
Consumer goods
Community safety and emergency planning

... plus more