• Max Wilkinson claims there were no obvious signs around the car park
• The Cheltenham councillor says it is ‘illogical’ to restrict charging to 90 minutes

A furious councillor was slapped with an ‘illogical’ fine after he charged his electric car at a supermarket for two hours while he did his grocery shopping. 

Max Wilkinson blasted the parking penalty after being ordered to pay £90 after visiting his local Lidl. 

The councillor from Cheltenham was shocked and claims he did not see any signs around the budget supermarket carpark specifying motorists could only park for 90 minutes- including the EV charge points. 

Mr Wilkinson, who recently purchased a four-year oil hybrid Mini Countryman, has no charging points in his residential street and so opted to charge his car while doing his weekly shop on Swindon Road. 

The councilor was told if he paid promptly the fine would be reduced from £90 to £45.

He did not dispute the fine but he felt it did not make sense to restrict car charging to 90 minutes- his motor was only half charged after two hours.

He told Gloucestershire Live: ‘I’ve paid the fine and it’s a fair cop. However, it seems illogical that quite a lot of EV and hybrid owners won’t be allowed to spend enough time in the car park to get a full charge.

‘The company probably should make that clear on the app or the charger itself. For me, this further highlights the need for Gloucestershire County Council to finally deliver its on-street electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

‘People want to do their bit by switching away from dirty petrol and diesel vehicles. At the moment that change isn’t being made easy enough.’

Lidl said their terms and conditions were clear and a prompt was given when using the Pod Point app. 

A Lidl spokesperson told The Sun Online: ‘At Lidl GB we are proud to have invested over £25m in the rollout of electric vehicle charging points since 2017 and have committed to having rapid charging points in place at 300 stores by the end of 2022.