Have you ever considered switching your petrol or diesel vehicle to electric?

Last month saw a record number of 32,721 electric vehicles join the road in what is typically the second busiest month of the year for the car industry.

Buying a car is a big decision and not one that people take lightly. It is certainly something I have given serious consideration to, especially with three big advocates of electric vehicles within my own cabinet in councillors Keith Williams, Rob Jandy and Brian Ford. There are also several other councillors with green motoring credentials.

Even though electric vehicles are improving and evolving all the time, people are worried about how far you can travel on a charge, the total cost of ownership and whether there are enough charge points if you need one.

Yet in almost eight years’ time, if we want to buy a new car it will need to be electric, as the Government has committed to phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030. All new cars and vans will be fully zero emissions at the tailpipe from 2035. This will make a major contribution towards achieving to the UK’s aim of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

To help local people think about electric vehicle ownership the council’s Swindon Travel Choices team has organised a special roadshow which will take place at the Orbital Shopping Park tomorrow (October 8) in North Swindon between 1pm and 6pm.

A team of experts will be on hand from local retailers Cleevely EV and Just EVs, Southwest EV Owners Group and the Energy Saving Trust to answer any questions people may have about the grants and finance that are available, charging points and anything else you may be not be quite sure of.

There is also the chance to drive new and used electric vehicles as well as ride electric motorbikes and electric bikes. You don’t even need to book, but make sure you bring your driving licence. Information about the day is available at www.swindontravelchoices.co.uk/event/ev-discovery and a similar event is planned for Lydiard Park on October 23.

The council recently published its Swindon electric vehicle charging point strategy, which sets out the options available to us for rolling out the charging infrastructure we will need across the borough over the next decade.

Electric vehicles now have 9.5 per cent share of the UK new car market, up from 5.4 per cent last year. If this growth continues, we could see a million electric vehicles on our roads by 2025 and projections estimate this could rise to anything between 2.7m and 10.6m by 2030. Therefore, we need to be prepared.

It is now less than a month until the UK hosts the next UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow where the eyes of the world will be on the nations’ leaders and what we will do globally to minimise our emissions.

Over the next few weeks, the media’s coverage of COP26 will start to ramp up and our efforts to tackle climate change will be firmly in the spotlight.

Whether you attend tomorrow’s event and are converted to electric vehicles or not, our Be the Change website (www.swindon.gov.uk/bethechange) has lots of handy tips and advice on how we can all make our own small changes to tackle climate change. We can all play our part.