Hampshire County Council has unveiled a new fleet of electric vehicles for use by its Highways service, saving carbon and money.

The 17 vehicles in the Highways fleet will be used by the County Council’s street works team, inspecting utilities works, and in the day to day work of highways inspectors, engineers and technicians.

Councillor Rob Humby, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment at Hampshire County Council, said: “These electric vehicles have a range of over 150 miles and will cost only 2p per mile to run, compared with the 13p cost per mile of the diesel vehicles they have replaced. With each member of the team covering over 50 miles per day as part of their work to examine utilities works and ensure agreed traffic management is being used to minimise disruption, this is a significant financial and carbon saving.”

Over the past decade, over £30 million has been made in carbon savings from the County Council’s estate and operations. By the end of the year, 80 new electric car charging points will be installed across Hampshire, along with charging infrastructure at County Council offices and depots.

Councillor Humby continued: “This is part of a County Council-wide programme to convert all its small vehicle fleet to electric vehicles, helping to reduce emissions and improve air quality across Hampshire, and forms part of our wider commitment to embed environmental considerations in all the work we do.”

These new highways vehicles are part of a total fleet of 28 Nissan leaf vehicles plus 7 Nissan e-NV200 Vans in use by Hampshire County Council, with plans to increase this as current leases expire. All of these vehicles are supplied by Hampshire Transport Management who manage Hampshire County Council’s transport fleet.