New streets could get car charger points

HOUSING developers could be told to install electric vehicle charging points on every new road, following intervention from a North East MP.

Helen Goodman, MP for Bishop Auckland, said the importance of charging points was emphasised by her own electric car purchase.

Speaking in the House of Commons, she urged Ministers to consider changing planning rules to ensure more charging points were in place.

Transport Minister John Hayes told her: “I think that that is a very good point.

“I am happy to have discussions about that with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government.”

Mr Hayes said there was “inconsistent provision” of charging points at the moment.

Ms Goodman said people who kept their cars on the street, rather than in a drive or garage, may have no easy way of charging their cars.

She told MPs: “I bought a Nissan Leaf last month, and I was very struck by the fact that for people to have their own charging point, they need off-street parking, which is not possible for anyone who has a flat or a terraced house.

“Will ministers please consider changing the planning rules to require charging points on new roads in all new housing developments, as well as at railway stations and in all publicly owned car parks, as in France?”

She was speaking during the debate of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, which aims to improve the network of charging points for electric vehicles.

It will also allow driverless vehicles on UK roads.

But some MPs questioned the safety of self-driving cars, also known as autonomous vehicles.

Swansea West MP Mr Geraint Davies, who also raised the risk of hacking, said: “Has the Government considered that the automation may require the software to make moral decisions?

“By way of example, if a car is hurtling down a road and some children go onto the road and the only option is to go headlong into a lorry, would the software perhaps say ‘okay, only the driver will die in this instance, but the children then’.”

In reply, Mr Hayes said driverless cars would lead to fewer accidents.

“Doing as well, indeed not just doing as well, doing better than a driver in control of a vehicle would do and therefore making the vehicle that bit safer, is what this is all about.”