A new Aldi store has faced criticism for installing just one electric car changing point in its car park.

In giving the green light for the Deal supermarket last December, members of Dover District Council's planning committee requested the company fitted 10% of the spaces with the charging facilities and a further 10% be fitted with ducting to enable conversion in the future.

With 128 spaces, this would mean there should be provision for 13 charging points serving 26 spaces.

But in March this year, Planning Potential on behalf of Aldi wrote to the authority requesting to amend the condition on the basis it was "unfeasible for a development of this scale".

They argued that officers had not deemed it appropriate to propose such condition as there is currently no adopted policy requirement for charging points.

They also said that Aldi stores have an average dwell time of less than 40 minutes in which time a vehicle would not need to re-charge.

Plus, they do not want to encourage long stay parking to maximise the turnover of spaces.

Approval was given under delegated powers.

Since the new budget store opened its doors in West Street last Thursday, disappointed resident John Lonsdale has spoken out.

He said: "One charging station, and a slow charger at that, is pathetic and no compensation for the loss of trees.

"Planning was granted, allowing all the mature trees to be cut down including those planted as a memorial to those who died in a WW2 bombing on the basis that 10% of the new parking spaces would be for electric car charging - something desperately needed in Deal which otherwise has none at all.

"It seems in March, Aldi applied to have this reduced to just two spaces, which was allowed by Deal Town and Dover District Councils with barely a word of protest.

"A big opportunity has been missed to install vital climate emergency infrastructure and have a corporation pay for it rather than the taxpayer.

"Both Deal Town and Dover District Councils have now declared Climate Emergencies and should persuade Aldi to increase the number of chargers as originally promised."

But a spokesman for DDC says there were no justified planning grounds to refuse the amendment.

The spokesman said: "We can confirm that Aldi submitted a variation of condition application to reduce the number of electric charging points to two, with ducting for future points if demand requires.

"This application was made available to the public, in accordance with our consultation procedures, including putting up site notices and placing on the DDC planning website.

"A decision was made under delegated powers. The application was approved as there were no justified planning grounds to refuse it."

DDC has also confirmed it has received £15,000 from Aldi which will be used by them for tree planting works within the Deal Town Centre confines in the future.

Aldi has not responded to our request for a comment.

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