The plan sets a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 11,800 tonnes by the 2016/2017 financial year, while cutting £750,000 of cost from its 3,000-strong grey fleet and £371,000 from its operations fleet.

External funding has allowed the council to replace 13 diesel pool cars with three fully electric cars and ten plug-in hybrids, which will be available for use with grey fleet drivers.

OLEV funding of £225,000 will install a network of six strategically placed charging points across Wiltshire, close to major routes and suitable rest points, while an additional £180,000 will extend charging infrastructure to the council’s own car parks for staff, visitor and public use.

A Corporate Driving at Work Police has recently been issued and the council is looking to reduce overall journeys to cut costs and environmental impact. Measures undertaken so far, including driver training and increased use of a fuel-efficient pool car fleet, have reduced CO2 output by 120 tonnes between 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, the council said.

Some of the savings will come from driver training. The council is running a trial of in-cab driver behaviour devices on 20 of its light commercial vehicles, and is already seeing savings as a result. If successful, the technology will be rolled out across the rest of its 100 operations fleet.