Westbury Town Council has taken delivery of a fully electric van for working in and around Westbury to reduce the council’s carbon footprint.
Mayor, cllr Michael Sutton said, “Westbury Town Council is very concerned about the air quality problems resulting from heavy traffic in the town centre. It made little sense for us to be continually asking for action on this whilst adding to the pollution ourselves, albeit it in a very small way.”
Cllr Ian Cunningham, who put forward the original proposal to the town council to switch to an electric van said, “I am delighted to see a forward-thinking council leading the way towards a cleaner town.”
Town clerk, Deborah Urch said, “It is great to drive, and I was impressed how little charge it used on its first journey. It will easily cover the many types of work we need to do around the town. The new van will replace our existing van and will be used by our town caretaker and his colleagues to carry out work and to support our events in the town.
“The town caretaker role came about when Westbury Town Council wanted to offer a quicker response to smaller or urgent jobs in the town in areas which are still mostly Wiltshire Council’s responsibility, but which the council felt were not being dealt with as often or as quickly as in the past.
“Since then, the town council has formally taken over responsibility for the play equipment in all the town’s play areas and the two sets of public toilets from Wiltshire Council, so the van will also support our work in these roles.”
