Close up of an electric car charging point
When is a car park not just a car park? When it helps fund local parish ministry. Dave Stout, Regional Giving Advisor (North) and Income Generation Lead, explains the opportunity for both churches and their communities.

The world is experiencing a personal transportation revolution. Ever since the first cars were made*, electricity was the obvious power source thanks to its simple and efficient energy output. But the technology to make it work on a large scale wasn’t there. Now, nearly two hundred years after those first electric vehicles (EV) hit the road the technology has been refined so that it can meet the needs of everyday driving. But this new cohort of cars need places to charge, and that’s where the church can help and in return receive regular, multi-year income to help fund its ministry in the local community.

Across the country are thousands of underutilised, unattractive, undervalued slabs of grey concrete that spend most of the week empty – our car parks. These are ideal for electric vehicle charging points. Entirely by accident, we have created the potential for perhaps the best located charging network, situated in the heart of almost every community, throughout England and Wales.

In return for renting a few spaces within a car park and installing fully serviced and maintained EV chargers entirely at their own cost, the EV Charging Companies will pay anywhere from £500-£40,000 a year to the church, depending on location.

Through Parish Buying any church with its own car park can submit their details to get a no-obligation set of quotes from five different EV charging companies. So far in 2024 over 300 churches have done this, and around 20% of those have progressed their quotes to the next stage. This includes a site-survey which will finalise a quote for the church to accept if they wish to proceed. Following this, the EV charging company will arrange all surveys before beginning the installation process.  After that there will be years of electric vehicle charging capability that will support the shift to a lower-carbon world while generating income for the church to reinvest in its community.

Submitting details for a no-obligation quote is very simple and should only take a few minutes, so click on this link now and within a few weeks you’ll have your quotes by email.

*The first cars were developed with electric motors as far back as the 1830s. It wasn’t until the 1880s that petrol was used as the power source.


Source URL: https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/building-generous-church/generous-church-blog/when-car-park-not-just-car-park