Torridge council decides to stick with some of its diesel vans

Councillors in Torridge have chosen to save taxpayers money and hang on to some of their older diesel vans for a while yet.

Torridge District Council, last year ranked as one of the worst performing local authorities in England for working towards net-zero targets, is sticking with its eight-year-old diesel vans despite a recommendation from officers to replace them with electric ones.

The three vans are used for the public health and community safety service and were due to be replaced.

Public health and community safety manager Phil Gilbert said 12 days were lost last year while the vans were in for maintenance and they’d had ‘a hard life’.

More than £50,000 is budgeted to replace them with electric models pushing up the costs by £13,000, but there would be a saving of £175 a month on fuel.

However, councillors said there is plenty more life in the current vans.

Councillor Peter Hames said the vans fit into the council’s climate targets but diesel vans are “far more challenging to the environment” while Cllr Doug Bushby said the book was “still open on how clean electric vehicles are”.

He said: “I don’t think an extra £10,000 is worth it. If we are going to have three new vans they should be diesel.”

A Climate Emergency UK assessment of action taken by district councils to reach net zero targets placed Torridge 149th out of 164 councils last year. Its carbon footprint doubled in three years.

Since then the council has replaced some vehicles with electric but admits it won’t meet reach net zero by 2030.