CAR parks across the whole of southern Oxfordshire are set to change.

Some car parks in Wantage, Abingdon and Faringdon could soon see electric car charging points installed.

Others in Didcot and Wallingford could soon have a standardised system for charges, instead of the current different charges at different sites.

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The two district councils which cover the area – Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire district councils – are planning to make changes to the way they manage their off-street parking: the large, ticketed car parks which they run.

They both want people to share their opinions on the plans in a kind of survey called a public consultation.

In the Vale, changes would include additional parking for electric vehicles and powers to issue fines for parking non-electric vehicles in electric charging bays, or for leaving an electric vehicle in the bay when it’s not charging.

Other plans include removing lorry parking spaces in the Rye Farm car park, Abingdon, and creating more spaces for smaller vehicles, and ‘formalising’ the parking bays in Hales Meadow car park, Abingdon, for coaches and campervans.

In South Oxfordshire, there are more changes planned than in the Vale.

This includes standard charging periods and times between 9am-5pm to be adopted in all town centre car parks across the districts, including an hour’s free parking at any time during that period.

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There would also be charges for Sunday parking to apply for all car parks, not just in some locations.

A maximum stay of two hours could be introduced at the High Street car park in Chinnor to tackle congestion.

There are also plans for half price parking permits for electric vehicles which are capable of travelling 20 miles on zero CO2, as well as new electric vehicle charging spaces.

Both councils now have consultations on their respective websites on their different plans, open until November 19. Visit whitehorsedc.gov.uk/parking or southoxon.gov.uk/parking

Andrew Crawford, cabinet member for finance at the Vale said the new measures were aimed at helping to ‘encourage people to make the switch from gas and diesel vehicles to electric’.