In March Coop were granted planning permission for a new convenience store on the Loose Road opposite Tesco Express where a car showroom had previously been.
Maidstone Borough Council imposed planning conditions and one of these was that at least 'one publicly accessible electric vehicle charging point' should be provided. This has become a common condition for even small developments to help improve Maidstone's sustainable transport and air quality.
Now Coop want this condition removed and their motive seems to be that they want an extra space for cars with polluting combustion engines. They attempt to justify it by saying that because it's a convenience store the average visit time will be less than 10 minutes which won't be enough to charge a car. Ionity are installing chargers that will take as little as 8 minutes.
Please object to this application and hopefully we can stop these Luddites in their tracks!
You can read the applicants letter here, full details here and my objection here.
To object you can either by registering with the planning portal site or emailing planningcomments@midkent.gov.uk and quote reference 19/500388/FULL.
