City councillor for environment gets view of carbon reduction plan at First Bus depot

City of York Council Joint Executive Member for the Environment and Climate Emergency, Jenny Kent, visited the First Bus depot on James Street this week to see progress in a £23m transformation programme.

The depot is set to become the first outside London to be fully electric by the end of the year. It has also been shortlisted in the Environment category at the prestigious routeone bus industry awards to be announced in November.

Cllr Kent was joined by Michael Howard, Head of Active & Sustainable Transport and Richard Hampton, Public Transport Infrastructure Manager to meet with Engineering Director, Simon Carlisle and the depot team for a tour of the new electricity infrastructure and charging facilities being installed to power the fleet.

Work on the site began in June and is expected to be complete in October.

Cllr Kent, said: “We are delighted to see the progress made in transforming the depot into a fully electric site, and want to thank everyone involved.

“It is a significant part of reducing York’s carbon emissions, but only if we use it.  We need safe, convenient, energy efficient bus services so that if we can’t walk or cycle, people can choose the bus and public transport wherever possible.”

Simon Carlisle added: “We were delighted to welcome Councillor Kent, Michael Howard and Richard Hampton to get the latest on the real progress being made to transform the depot.

“It gave us the opportunity to discuss how the smart charging will work and other aspects of power use at the depot as we look to reduce the carbon emissions of our operations as well as the fleet.”

The first of the new all-electric buses are expected to enter service in the coming weeks.

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