INSTALLING charging points in car parks across Cheshire East would encourage people to buy electric vehicles, improve the environment and could be a money spinner for the council.

That was the view of the council's highways and transport committee which met on Monday to discuss the Cheshire East Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy.

Richard Hibbert, the council's head of strategic transport and parking, told the committee that in the middle of last year there were 2,100 electric cars registered with private users across the borough and, because of the ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars which comes in in 2030, that number will grow.

The report to the committee acknowledged that, although the council has invested in providing some electric vehicle charge points "there are extensive gaps in current provision within Cheshire East. Notably, there is a lack of provision in the Macclesfield area and in areas of other towns where houses do not have off- street parking".

Mr Hibbert said because most council car parks were in prime town centre locations this was ideal for charging points.

"I would be optimistic we could enter into this at no real cost to the authority, it might even be a revenue earner for the authority," he said.

"We need to go through that commercial procurement exercise to get to that position."

Cllr Mike Sewart agreed saying: "I represent an area that's got a lot of houses that open directly on to a road, they're not going to be able to have a charging point. We have to cater for those people."

He said putting the charge points in the council's car parks would help boost the town centres.

"If we want to maintain footfall in our town centres we've got to cater for people taking their cars in and being able to charge these machines," said Cllr Sewart.

He said some supermarket chains were installing charging points "but most of these are out of town sites so, if it's only out of town sites where people with electric cars can go, that will make our town centres even emptier than they are now".

Middlewich councillor Mike Hunter said this could be a real income generator for the council at a time when it most needed it.

"It places us in pole position because of the car park estates that we own," said Cllr Hunter. "We need to make sure we take advantage of those opportunities because, if we don't ,we're diddling ourselves out of money basically."

Dane Valley councillor Les Gilbert said it was important the council kept people informed about their proposals.