Council staff encouraged to go electric in Bedford after investment in bikes and cars

Bedford Borough Council is encouraging its staff to leave their cars at home and go electric when travelling around the county on council business.

The Climate Change Committee heard yesterday (Monday, November14) that the council has invested in six electric bikes for the purposes of short work related trips, as well as three fully electric pool cars.

Matthew D’Archambaud, chief officer transport, highways and engineering, told the Committee that the council has been able to “practise what it preaches” by reducing its own carbon emissions from business journeys.

“We will be putting a real challenge to our staff to say ‘well look, this should be the default mechanism for you going out and claiming business mileage, this needs to be the first choice’,” he said.

“I think we’ve had an awful lot of interest in both the pool cars and the pool bikes actually, which we’ve been really, really, pleased with,” he said.

He added that the council is “quietly confident” that the electric pool cars will grow in numbers in the “not too distant” future.

Bedford mayor, Dave Hodgson, who was chairing the committee, said: “This means [council staff] can come in by active travel or by public transport and then get one of the pool cars to do their visits by electric car.

“Hopefully this will help some of the staff make choices about how they come into Borough Hall, whereas the moment if you’ve got a few visits you have no option but to come in your car,” he said.

Mr D’Archambaud said: “We will certainly be tracking that business mileage.

“We want to be able to come back and say well this is the carbon saving we are delivering in these vehicles.

“And similarly, as a very nice product potentially, what’s the pounds and pence saving to the authority as a whole in terms of the cost of that business mileage.”

The council said business mileage generates approximately 100 tonnes of carbon per annum or almost 2 per cent of its total carbon emissions.