A motion congratulating East Lothian Council on its recent success at a prestigious electric vehicle awards ceremony has been lodged at the Scottish Parliament by Martin Whitfield MSP.

The council received the Public Transport Authority of the Year – Special Recognition Award at the Electric Vehicle Innovation and Excellence Awards (EVIEs) 2021 for its work on the roll out of EV infrastructure across the county.

Mr Whitfield’s motion welcomes the council’s achievement and thanks the staff who have been involved in developing and implementing the work on local EV infrastructure.

Commenting, Martin Whitfield MSP said:

“I was delighted to learn of East Lothian Council’s success at these prestigious awards and wanted to acknowledge it at Holyrood.

“Being recognised in this way is a strong endorsement of the work the council and its staff have been undertaking to try and ensure that East Lothian has the infrastructure needed to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles.

“It’s another positive example of the leading role the council is taking on our local response to the climate emergency and supporting the transition to a net-zero economy across East Lothian.”

The full motion is as follows:

That the Parliament congratulates East Lothian Council on its recent success on winning the Public Transport Authority of the Year – Special Recognition Award at the Electric Vehicle Innovation and Excellence Awards 2021; understands that the judging panel noted the extensive work carried out by the local authority to install a comprehensive network of on-street chargers, close to where they are needed, in addition to prominent 50kW journey charging sites in all of its major town centres; notes that special recognition was also given to East Lothian’s partnership-working with external organisations on projects as diverse as co-locating on-street electric bike hire with car-charging stations, and “Agile Streets’”, which brings flexible electricity tariffs to people without a safe place to charge at home, and thanks all of the local authority’s staff who are leading on the development and implementation of this important work on community EV infrastructure.