High River Town Council voted unanimously to remove the Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) chargers located just off 3 Ave South, between Centre Street and 1st West.
The Town originally added the PEV chargers in hopes that they would bring visitors outside to the downtown core of High River, but they were found to have not been meeting their original purpose.
"Following the 2013 flood, we did quite a bit of work with the downtown revitalization. As a part of that revitalization project, we installed two electric car chargers in the museum parking lot beside the service," said Municipal Services Director Reiley McKerracher at the meeting. "These chargers were primarily an economic development tool to encourage people to visit our community and our downtown. The chargers have not fulfilled their original intent of being primarily used by local users and have a cost of upwards of $7,000 per year in electrical costs alone, plus any maintenance we may have on top of that."
McKerracher added that they have already had to replace one of the chargers after it broke down.
The chargers and signage will be removed, and the power meter will be de-energized.
The Town recognizes that regular users of the chargers may be disappointed at the loss of free charging and that the decision could impact High Rivers's reputation for green initiatives.
When asked if it would be possible to find a private company to run the chargers, McKerracher responded in the affirmative.
"I would rather put this to private business than us running a business of charging stations. Right now we have been just giving it away for free," Nychyk explained.
"I haven't been in favour of this, giving away free fuel to people, since its inception. I am voting in terms of pulling them out and if someone privately as a business wants to come and utilize that spot and pay us a lease for that space and run a charger from it, then I would consider supporting that in the future. But right now I would like to see them gone."
High River Town Council looked into alternatives like implementing a timed parking limit, installing pay chargers, implementing pay parking, and charger attrition, but ultimately decided on the outright removal of the chargers.