Driving change in Offaly as five electric vehicles join corporate fleet

“The Housing Maintenance and Corporate Buildings Departments welcomes the introduction of Zero Emissions electric vehicles to their fleet,” said senior engineer John Cunningham.

“We now have three large Ford Transit vehicles which will provide housing maintenance to over 25pc of our social housing stock located in Tullamore and Birr Municipal District areas including Kilcormac, Cloghan, Ballycumber and Ferbane.

“The vehicles will be driven by our craftsmen who are responsible for reactive and planned maintenance of our social housing stock. Two smaller electric vehicles will be used in the towns of Tullamore and Birr by our caretakers for duties associated with our corporate buildings.”

Referring to the draft Climate Action Plan targets, Tom Shanahan, Director of Services said: “This is just one of the positive steps Offaly County Council is making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its own infrastructure and assets by 51pc by 2030 and create pathways towards enabling sectoral emission reductions across the county.”

Offaly County Council’s Draft Climate Action Plan encompasses all forms of climate action including mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity enhancement and sets out actions which encourage and support local communities to strengthen their capacity and resilience to climate change through funding and other supports which Offaly County Council will provide.

John McNally, Climate Action Coordinator with Offaly County Council further added: “The Draft Climate Action Plan will be presented to the Full Council for discussion with a view to adoption later this month. We want to thank the public for their support during the public consultation phase.”

Senior Engineer of Roads and Infrastructure Barry Lennon said: “Offaly County Council continues to roll out EV charging points as part of the Department of Transport Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI) initiative which supports consumers, the public sector, and businesses to continue to make the switch to zero emission vehicles.

“As we continue to roll out infrastructure locally and combined with the addition of EV vehicles to our Corporate Fleet, we will assist in the delivery of Ireland’s ambitious targets in the national Climate Action Plan 2023 as well as meeting targets in our own Climate Action Plan.”

Chief Executive Anna Marie Delaney concluded: “Offaly County Council is committed to being an agent of change and continues to implement projects which assist us on our journey of increasing energy efficiency to 50pc by the year 2030.

“The key priority areas identified in our draft Plan include Corporate Buildings, Corporate Fleet, Decarbonising Zone in Tullamore, Communities and Sustainable Energy – with 114 actions identified for incorporation via our own Service Delivery Plan within each area.”