Barchester's in the transport efficiency fast lane

Woodhorn Park, a Barchester run care home, in Ashington, is the proud owner of the very first all-electric car to join the company’s vehicle fleet.

The environmentally friendly Nissan Leaf is a five-door hatchback electric car manufactured by Nissan. It is already an award winner as it is free from exhaust fumes and direct greenhouse gas emissions.

Kevin Inns, Transport Manager at Barchester, explains: “We are already operating several petrol and diesel hybrid vehicles and want to embrace the innovative alternatives that are available on the market, too. This will be an ideal vehicle to operate out of Woodhorn Park, especially as there are several charging points in the area with Nissan being a local manufacturer.”

Barchester is committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 10 percent over the next three years. It is targeting parts of the business where these important energy saving measures can be taken or improved and has already reduced these emissions, which have fallen year-on-year by 10 percent since 2009. The company has also appointed Ben Collard, Energy and Environment Manager, to implement a low carbon strategy across the companies 200 care homes.

Ben Collard, said: “This is a great first step as we hope to have electric cars in more of our homes. We believe diversifying our 430-strong fleet is important way to lower our carbon emissions. There’s also the potential to expand the electric car fleet as all of the 13 new homes that we are building this year have charging points on site for future use and several established sites in the South-East already produce their own renewable energy, which could be used to power the car.”