On that day, West Berkshire Council announced it had received the final drawings for the car park. These “indicate that the chargers will be placed along the wall that is adjacent the Library and by the exit of the car park, taking up the five spaces that are currently there and having four accessible charging bays so that there is a gap for both chargers between the spaces.”

These will be one dual-header 22kw charger and one dual -header rapid charger. There will also be a junction box placed in the parking bay which already contains the bollard and pay machine to power these chargers and make the connection to the grid.

So up to four vehicles will be able to charge simultaneously using a combination of connections known as “Fast” and “Rapid” speeds. They should be an attraction for visitors and a useful facility for local residents without off-street parking or needing a quicker charge than can normally be done at home. If you are interested in changing to a zero emissions electric car or van and have some questions, have look at our previous EV events on hungerfordenvironmentalactionteam.com or email heat_hungerford@yahoo.com and a HEAT member will be pleased to answer.

The ground works started on 5 August are now complete and the chargers are expected to be connected to the grid and fully operational by mid-October. This may change in the light of unforeseen circumstances, of which this project has already seen more than a few.

Meanwhile, Cobbs Far Shop on the A4 is also waiting for its own chargers to be connected. A spokesperson told me on 31 July that “we are waiting for a final electrical connection to be made from the main grid but this is out of our control.” There are still free electric chargers for customers to use, but these are not very quick.

We’ll post news on both of these once we know more.