Call for EV charger in Castlepollard as rural areas ‘forgotten’

A proposal to install an electric vehicle charging point at the rear of Castlepollard Library has reignited long-standing frustrations over the lack of EV infrastructure in the north of the county.

At the December meeting of the Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District, Cllr Alfie Devine called on the council to ensure Castlepollard is included in forthcoming EV rollout plans.

He said many motorists in the area have already switched to electric and warned that rural parts of Westmeath risk being “forgotten”.

District officials said the Draft Regional Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Strategy – being led by Offaly County Council and due to be finalised before year end – will guide the delivery of destination and neighbourhood charging points across the county as part of the Regional and Local EV Charging Network Plan 2025–2030.

Locations for Castlepollard will be examined in 2026 in collaboration with ZEVI (Zero Emissions Vehicles Ireland).

But Cllr Devine said rural district towns and villages must be explicitly included: “All the towns and villages in the district need to be looked at.

Local groups are willing to help source funding. If you just put them in the plans for 2026, that would be great.”

Cllr Denis Leonard backed the motion, saying Castlepollard – one of the county’s Sustainable Energy Community towns – should not be overlooked.

He recalled a previous council presentation that showed most proposed charging points located in Mullingar, Athlone and other large centres: “Very little was going into any rural town. Do you actually believe people in rural towns don’t drive electric cars?”

He said EVs remain the leading zero-emissions technology for now, and warned that Ireland faces steep fines for missing climate targets. Public chargers at local facilities like libraries, he argued, would reassure motorists they can travel without fear of running out of charge.

Cllr David Jones also supported the motion, saying rural towns had been consistently left behind.

He recalled that Castlepollard had previously secured costings for a charger at the library, and that he had pursued a similar plan for Delvin – only to be told to hold off because the county strategy was being developed.

“After putting in so much work, I had to forget about the application,” he said. “We had commercial providers willing to install chargers at no cost to the council, needing only two parking spaces in each town.

The rural councillors shouldn’t support any plan unless rural areas are covered.”

He added that Delvin is progressing an energy master plan, which will include a charging point, and said visiting EV drivers would spend money locally while waiting for their vehicles to charge.

Cllr Niall Devine, who served on the Transportation SPC during earlier discussions, said the previous draft had focused heavily on profitability, prioritising locations where commercial operators could earn the highest return. He stressed the need for public chargers at libraries, community hubs and town centres, noting also that grid capacity constraints must be considered: “There was an awful lot of red on that grid map.”

‘Unacceptable’

Cllr Alfie Devine said his own experience driving an EV recently highlighted the scale of the problem: “The biggest issue I had was finding somewhere to get charged. Eighteen percent of cars sold in Ireland this year are electric vehicles and we’ve very little publicly available on the ground in towns and villages.”

He said it was “unacceptable” that the north of the county appeared with no designated charging locations in previous studies, and insisted major rural towns such as Castlepollard, Kinnegad, Delvin and Clonmellon must be included.

“If we don’t do this, we will be left behind. Cars are being sold, but the infrastructure isn’t there,” he said.

Strategy

Director of services Deirdre Reilly confirmed that Westmeath’s Transportation Section is co-authoring the new regional strategy, which will prioritise towns and villages rather than only urban centres.

“When the strategy comes into place, expected at the end of this year, it will go back to the Transportation SPC and then to the district, as before,” she said. “Funding will come with it, and the intention is to ensure rural areas are fully considered.

She said members of the Transportation SPC, including Cllr Devine, would be kept informed as the strategy progresses.