Ex-England footballer Micah Richards has claimed Harrogate Borough Council thwarted his bid to install an electric vehicle charging point at his Harrogate home.
Richards is a regular pundit on Sky Sports alongside Roy Keane and Graeme Souness. During Sunday’s coverage, the trio discussed what steps they had taken to tackle climate change and improve the environment.
Richards said he had an electric car and hoped to install a charging point at his home.
However, the former England player claimed he was held back by the council’s planning department. He said:
“I had an electric car for a while. Harrogate council though didn’t allow me to have a charger. So I had to stop that for about six months.”
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Richards’ comments received support on Twitter, with one person saying councils and government should do more to install charging points and encourage electric vehicle use:
“Good of Micah Richards to mention Harrogate council. The government and councils don’t help on the expense involved of electric cars and charging points to make it practical. You either want to do this as a country for people or not.”
Another person tweeted:
“Micah Richards calling out Harrogate planning department for refusing an electric charging point was not the content I was expecting when turning on Sky Sports today!”
A council spokesman said:
“Planning permission is not normally required for the installation of wall-mounted electric vehicle charging points so we’d welcome Mr Richards getting in touch with us as we’d be happy to help.
“He is also welcome to use the charging points at our civic centre on St Luke’s Avenue in Harrogate.”
