Electric waste lorries for district a possibility, but not yet

More environmentally friendly electricity powered bin lorries aren’t set to come to South Holland yet, but it’s something being looked into, a meeting heard.

South Holland District Council, which officially signed off a climate change strategy with its partners in the South and East Lincolnshire Local Partnership recently, is looking into how much it could cost to replace the fleet of vehicles used by its Environmental Services team.

It’s listed as an expenditure that will cost the council more than £75,000.

Coun Michael Booth used last week’s Full Council meeting to ask if the authority was looking into vehicles such as the bin lorries being run on electricity.

Coun Roger Gambba-Jones answered that the district council was first looking to see how other councils get on with their roll out amid concerns over the costs associated with the more environmentally friendly vehicles.

“It’s one we’ve pondered on a number of occasions,” he told the meeting. “A few councils are beginning to use them but we’re waiting to see what their experience tells us about whether it’s a practical thing to do in rural areas such as South Holland.

“We are actively looking at it and our manager Charlotte Payne is very keen to see this but we’re being very cautious on behalf of the tax payers.

“They’re very expensive vehicles to look after in terms of maintenance and do depreciate in value.”

He continued that the council would look into how viable it would be in some of the district’s more rural areas where there are fewer charging points.

“The biggest issue we have is the ability to cater for the extremes of our district,” Coun Gambba-Jones continued.

“Even in locations that are relatively urban, authorities are being very cautious with the issues that are involved in terms of vehicle charge times and their abilities to sustain very slow journeys, backwards and forwards movements and lots of stop- start activity.

“Even the electric vehicles that are relatively small use a lot of energy because of the increased loads they have to carry.”