TENBURY’S hopes of being a national pioneer for ‘Green’ community transport is at risk of running out of road.

The Teme Wheels appeal for funding to buy an electric people carrier, with wheelchair access, has gone well but not well enough.

It is still thousands of pounds short of what is needed and time is running out.

The charity has estimated that it needs £40,000 to pay for the vehicle they want.

There is an option to get a 50 per cent grant for the project from the Spacehive initiative.

But for this to happen Teme Wheels will have to be able to demonstrate it can get half of the money from its own fund raising in order to be eligible for the matched funding.

John Driver, who heads the Teme Wheels team, says that they are about £4,000 short of what is needed.

“I am optimistic but there is still work to be done,” said Mr Driver.

The funding bid through Spacehive has already been extended once and the new deadline is the middle of September with Mr Driver saying that if the money has not been raised in time there will not be a further extension.

Securing the money is just one of the challenges that the charity is facing as it hopes to get the electric vehicle on the road in the autumn.

There is a need to secure a dedicated charging point.

Mr Driver says that the group will need to have a charging point where they have exclusive use and that using the limited number of public charging places will not work.

“I need to make sure that I can have the vehicle fully charged as I cannot risk running out of power with a group of people on board out in the middle of nowhere,” he added.

One of the issues is that electric vehicles have a much shorter range, roughly 150 miles says Mr Driver, compared with petrol and even more so diesel