The Goupil utility vehicle range, which is exclusively supplied by Bradshaw Electric Vehicles in the UK, continues to become a hit with independent schools.

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A number of schools throughout the UK are switching their traditional site vehicles to the zero-emission light utility vehicle range, helping to do their bit to tackle climate change.

New handlers include Bedford School, Peterborough School and St Peter’s School in York.

St Peter’s, York, which prides itself on being the third oldest school in the UK, opted for a specially designed G4 box van to help transport food and necessities within the school grounds as well as within its local community.

Peterborough School’s G2 pickup, which has affectionally been named as ‘Sheldon’ by the pupils, is being used to transport goods and equipment between the school’s 15 buildings as well as to collect waste across its 10-acre site.

As for Bedford School, its Goupil G4 is similarly being put to task to help the site management team with a host of tasks from waste management to transporting goods across their extensive grounds.

Entirely customisable and available in two different models – the G2 and G4 – the Goupil range is ideally suited to working across large-scale estates, even those that are connected by a public highway, as a result of its low maintenance, generous payload and compact size.

British schools are actively accelerating their sustainability plans as the nation draws ever closer to the Government’s vision for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy by 2050.

And Ramsy Labassi, marketing manager at Bradshaw Electric Vehicles expects more schools to follow suit and make the switch to the Goupil range as a result of its versatile usage and zero-emission output.

Labassi commented: “Climate change has swiftly risen to the top of the global agenda in recent years, and as such organisations are actively looking at alternative ways to ensure that their operations become more sustainable and environmentally friendly – but of course without compromising on performance, uptime, or output.

“This is where we find the Goupil vehicles tick a number of boxes for our customers in the independent school space. They are not only ideally suited to a wide range of uses, whether that be waste management or for transporting goods or food, but they also offer an excellent alternative to their petrol or diesel counterparts by providing the same efficiencies but with the carbon-free advantage.”

Labassi continued: “The fact the Goupils can be customisable to our customers’ bespoke requirements as well as to the specified usage of the vehicle is also a significant benefit. With St Peter’s, York they requested upon purchase that the vehicle was to be equipped with a shutter at the side, as well as at the back, to facilitate the easy loading and unloading of the vehicle – and we delivered just that.”

State-funded education institutions can also now access the Workplace Charging Scheme to benefit from grants towards the costs of the purchase, installation and infrastructure of electric vehicle charge points.

The grant is open to state-funded schools, colleges, nurseries and academies and provides up to 75% of the cost to buy and install charge points; delivering up to £2,500 per socket, compared to the previous £350.