23 May 2012 Last updated at 10:59 ET

Wolverton electric pool car scheme targets second car owners

An area of Milton Keynes is to run an electric car pool scheme in a bid to help combat parking problems.

Wolverton is one of only two communities in the UK chosen to pilot the E-Car club, which will see up to five electric vehicles deployed.

Residents and businesses signed up to the scheme will be able to hire them by the hour.

The Wolverton Steering Group, which applied for the pilot, said it hoped occasional car users would use them.

The scheme, run by Sustainable Venture Development, is thought to be the first in the UK to exclusively use electric vehicles and will also be piloted in north Oxfordshire.

Members will be able to book vehicles either weeks or minutes before they are needed and collect their chosen car by tapping a personal smart card on a reader inside the windscreen.

They will need to return the vehicle to its dedicated bay after use and plug it back in.

Parking pressure

As well as appealing to people who work at home, the steering group hope to target second car owners, who only use their cars occasionally and where public transport is not an option.

"I think we all have to recognise that there are only so many cars you can fit in Wolverton," she said.

"There are a lot of cars that sit on the street all day untouched, if we could even replace a handful of those with users of the E-Car scheme, we're beginning to relieve that pressure on parking."

Work will shortly be starting to identify appropriate sites for the cars and their fast charging infrastructure, with three to five cars expected to be on the road later this year.

Membership of the club will be £4.50 a month with an hourly hire charge on top, likely to be about £5.00.

Milton Keynes is one of only eight local authorities to be awarded government funding to install electric vehicle charging points across the borough as part of the national Plugged in Places project.