• I WAS contemplating buying a new fully electric car. So I checked the location of Camden’s charging points: none in my Cantelowes ward.

But I noted a neighbour was running a charging cable across the pavement from his home in a plastic protective channel like those used all the time by workmen and utilities, so I took heart and wrote to Camden to ask whether that’s OK.

A couple of weeks later I received a reply from a senior Camden transport planner that confirmed my worst fears. Camden will enforce against car owners who run car-charging cables across the pavement, for reasons of health and safety.

It was suggested I could perhaps use my nearest charging point which is in Burghley Road, half a mile away. There is no way that I’m willing to take my chances that remote bays may be available and working every time I’d need to charge.

And at present Camden apparently hopes to add only 15 more charging points across the borough in the next two years. I cannot see electric cars becoming serious sellers until boroughs like Camden introduce a real capability to charge locally.

There is a government scheme to subsidise the creation of charging points from lamp-posts which reduces the cost to a few hundred pounds. Come on Camden!

PAUL BRAITHWAITE
Bartholomew Villas, NW5