Nearly £1 million can be spent on electric vehicle charging points across the borough using government money, council leaders have agreed. But one opposition councillor has warned the scheme has ‘all the ingredients to fail’, claiming electric cars are ‘unpopular’.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council is to look for companies to install new charging points on streets around the borough. The scheme will be paid for using a £927,000 government grant.

Liberal Democrat council leader Simon Werner said that as all the funding came from the government, the scheme would be a ‘win-win’ for residents. He said: “I think the great thing about this is it’s not actually being paid for by the council tax payer with their council tax.

“We’re improving the borough without costing the residents of the borough any more money – so it’s a win-win.”

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Leading councillors on the Royal Borough’s cabinet committee signed off on the plan at a meeting on Wednesday, October 2.

But Conservative opposition councillor Leo Walters said the scheme would be a ‘failure’ as he raised several objections to electric cars at a scrutiny meeting two days earlier.

Councillor Walters claimed electric cars are ‘very unpopular’ and could be obsolete by 2035, when the council says it will have needed to install 725 charging points across the borough.

He said: “It’s not just a million pounds it’s taxpayers’ money and a question mark hangs over this thing and I think a lot of people are very much against the electric cars.

“People don’t want electric cars. They got them initially because subsidies were given like we’re being given subsidies to get on with the charging points. It’s a real racket.”

Councillor Walters also said he believed electric cars are dangerous due to their lack of noise, that their manufacture increases greenhouse gases, and that the infrastructure needed to support them will mean more pylons will have to be built in the countryside.

But council plans say electric car ownership in the borough is ‘growing exponentially’. The council says that there are currently 4,000 electric cars in the borough – but that there could be as many as 50,000 in 2035 as people replace their petrol and diesel cars.

Independent councillor Geoff Hill – responsible for transport – said the council needed to provide more charging points. He said: “The whole thrust behind this is the increase in use of electric cars in the borough.

“It is part of the green agenda – very obviously – because electric vehicles don’t put out any emissions and it will actually help people who haven’t got driveways and easy access to electric charging points in their own homes charge their vehicles up on the street.”