New street light charging points for electric vehicles have been installed on Chapel Lane in Swords.

The installations mark a significant achievement, making Fingal County Council the first local authority in Ireland to install the integrated charging columns.

The charging points have a distinctive green colour to allow passing motorists to easily identify the nearest EV charging column.

The street light installation marks another important milestone on Fingal's electric journey. Fingal already has 12 dedicated fast-charging points which were installed earlier this year across five Fingal offices and depots, which are used by Fingal's Electric Vehicle fleet, staff and contractors.

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Earlier this year, five fully electric Citroen Berlingo vans replaced diesel powered vans in its operational fleet. Each of the vehicles can cover 170 kilometres on a full charge, and take just 30 minutes to completely re-charge the batteries at the fast charging points. The vehicles are currently in use in the Operations Department in areas dealing with Roads, Street Cleaning and Parks.

David Storey, Director of Operations at Fingal County Council, said: "Electric vehicle use reduces the emissions that contribute to climate change and we as a progressive local authority are moving forward to sustainably meet the growing demand for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We ensure that we build sustainable communities and provide the necessary infrastructure for those communities to grow and prosper. We already have an existing electricity supply infrastructure in the public street lighting system which can be adapted to meet the needs of the growing electric vehicle owning population and visitors across Fingal."

(CM/MH)