‘We own an electric car but struggled to charge on holiday in the Cotswolds'

A retired couple has claimed they struggled to use their electric car on holiday, with the pair concerned at the lack of charging stations. Rose and Ian Ferguson headed to the Cotswolds in their Renault ZOE but admitted they found it tough to top-up.

The couple purchased their Renault back in 2020 and usually top-up their vehicle at home overnight. However, the pair decided to take their EV on a family trip earlier this summer but found charging their car a tougher experience than they had imagined. The couple said they often had to travel an extra 5 to 10 miles out of their way to find a charger they could plug into their vehicle.

Rose said: "We've just come back from the Cotswolds and we charged quite a bit up there. There weren't so many chargers, you were fine if you went to a service station on the motorway but then they tended to be very busy. In the towns, we only found generally 7kW charges, which take ages to charge.”

In their experience, Rose and Ian found that many of the smaller service stations and garages were fitted with the wrong chargers which didn’t work with their vehicle. Earlier this summer, Cotswold District Council confirmed the installation of 24 new electric vehicle chargers in car parks across the area.

The new plugs were added across four council car parks at Stow-on-the-Wold, Tetbury, Moreton-in-Marsh, and Cirencester. It means there are over 150 publicly accessible electric vehicle (EV) chargers within the Cotswold District alone.

Despite the issues, Rose and Ian have fallen in love with their electric car and have no plans to return to petrol and diesel combustion models.

Rose added: “Coming back from the Cotswolds it told us we hadn’t got enough charge to get home. So it said, do you want us to put charging stations en-route.”

Ian added: “You can schedule your route and schedule a charging station on the way.”

Rose concluded: "When we came back from the Cotswolds, we were tight for time as we had to be somewhere, so I reckon we stopped for 20 minutes max. That gave us 100 miles, which gave us enough to get home. We didn’t fully charge it, we just thought let’s put a top-up in.”

Cllr Mike McKeown, cabinet member for climate change and digital at Cotswold District Council said: “We recognise that drivers visiting the Cotswolds may still find it challenging at times to access convenient and rapid electric vehicle charging, and we are working hard to change that.

"Over the past year we have installed dozens of new charging points in towns including Cirencester, Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-Marsh, Tetbury and Northleach. These are in addition to our existing chargers including faster 50kW+ rapid chargers in Cirencester and Moreton-in-Marsh, which provide a much quicker top-up than the standard 7kW chargers, helping to reduce waiting times and cut down on unnecessary detours. We also granted planning permission last year for a 250kW ultra-rapid charging hub near Cirencester.

“Our ambition is that wherever possible people will be within a short walk of a public charging point, and we are focusing on town centre car parks so that both residents and visitors without off-street parking can benefit.

"Expanding access to electric vehicle charging is a key part of our wider climate strategy, which has already seen the council ranked among the top-performing local authorities in the country for climate action. We know there is more to do, and feedback from visitors is important in shaping our ongoing investment so that charging an EV in the Cotswolds becomes easier and more reliable in the future.”