A NEW public charging point for electric cars will be installed in Keighley's Church Green car park.

Keighley MP John Grogan said the device should be fitted some time within the next few months.

It is part of a project which is running between now and March 2020, administered by Bradford Council and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. A total of 88 rapid charging points are due to be installed in West Yorkshire before March 2020.

Once the Church Green car park device is in place, it will complement the existing public charging point already located at the Scott Street Car Park. The charger off Scott Street was installed as part of a joint Government, Keighley Town Council and Bradford Council initiative in 2014.

Mr Grogan said: "Funding is available to local authorities from central Government for 75 per cent of the costs of installing a charge point.

"I am hopeful that the Chancellor may provide additional incentives for buying electric cars in the budget on October 29th.

"In August 2018 one in every 12 cars sold in the UK was an electric vehicle.

"Electric cars are currently niche, but if we are to successfully combat climate change they have to become mainstream in the next decade."

Mr Grogan is one of 40 MPs and Lords who have written to the Chancellor today asking for additional tax incentives to be brought forward for electric vehicles.

Tax rates on low-emission company cars are set to rise from 13 per cent this year to 16 per cent next year, before being slashed to two per cent in April 2020.

However the MPs and Lords want the cut to take effect in April 2019, warning that delay risks harming the Government’s efforts to reduce pollution.