New electric buggy helps Shrewsbury gardeners stay green
Gardeners will be keeping things green in more ways than one as they buzz around in their new electric buggy.
Shrewsbury Town Council's horticultural staff will be using the new vehicle in the Quarry as they keep the town of flowers looking bright and colourful.
The vehicle will help the council take another step towards becoming carbon neutral after it declared a climate emergency in 2019.
Helen Ball, town clerk, said: “We have looked at our activities and identified areas where we can make an immediate impact on our carbon footprint.
“As part of that process, we have undertaken a review of our vehicles and feel that we are able to gradually replace our fleet of diesel vehicles with new, environmentally-friendly electric ones.”
Councillor Alan Mosley, leader of the town council said: “We are actively looking at ways to achieve our target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030, though we hope that it will be much sooner.
"Introducing more electric vehicles can help us reduce our emissions whilst undertaking our work around the town.
“This course of action will also ensure that we are providing good value for our residents as the new electric vehicles deliver an economic saving to the town council, whilst also fulfilling our promise to reduce our carbon emissions.
“This is part of our ambitious Action Plan which was recently fully supported by members of the Climate Emergency Advisory Group and will be financed from a large and ring-fenced budget.”
A charging point has been installed in the Quarry for this new vehicle and two electric charging points will be installed at the council’s Weeping Cross Centre to help power its fleet of vehicles.
