Incentives to encourage taxi and private-hire firms to make the £50,000 switch to electric cars have been labelled “a drop in the ocean”.

Canterbury City Council believes the measures approved at the beginning of November will help the district’s fleet “move to cleaner vehicles”.

But the authority has since been accused of “paying lip service to the green lobby”, as one businessman believes the benefits are “never going to persuade drivers to go electric”.

Whitstable-based Richard Stebbing, a private-hire driver of more than 20 years, thinks the plans aren’t nearly enough.

“The outlay would be prohibitively expensive for an electric vehicle, even if the range was sufficient,” he explained.

“There are very, very few drivers who can go out there and fund the purchase of a £50,000 vehicle – it would put the cost up to the travelling public enormously.

“On my busiest day last week I did well over 400 miles, and I was driving continuously, virtually non-stop apart from toilet breaks and grabbing a coffee, for 10 and a half hours.

“You can’t do that in an electric vehicle. Unless they double the battery life and halve the cost, they’re never going to work.”

The incentives for those who switch to zero-emission vehicles include a £100-a-year overnight parking permit – available for five years – and the ability to advertise on their cars, subject to council approval.

Drivers will also be offered a 20% discount lasting five years to their licensing fee, amounting to about £30 per annum.

“It’s all a drop in the ocean,” Mr Stebbing continued.

“When you’ve got to buy a vehicle costing between £50,000 and £70,000, it isn’t going to make a bit of difference – it’s never going to persuade drivers to go electric.

"Providing these incentives to our drivers will help us meet our commitment to be net zero carbon by 2030..."

“The council are paying lip service to the public and the green lobby.”

Mr Stebbing uses a five-seater Mercedes E-Class for work, of which he says there is no electric version.

Cabbies in the district, which includes Whitstable and Herne Bay, had hit out at the local authority’s original target of a wholly electric fleet by 2030 earlier this year.

The city council later voted through plans to only allow new taxi and private-hire applications to be given to drivers using battery-electric vehicles from April 2030.

Responding to Mr Stebbing’s criticisms, authority spokesman Rob Davies said: “Councillors agreed a range of incentives to encourage battery-electric vehicle uptake with the aim of encouraging the fleet of taxi and private-hire vehicles to move to cleaner, more environmentally friendly vehicles.

"Providing these incentives to our drivers will help us meet our commitment to be net zero carbon by 2030.

"We know we are pushing at an open door with many of our drivers on this and are working collaboratively with the industry to make it happen.

"Throughout this, we have been following the best practice for electric vehicle taxi transition as set out in government-funded guidance."

Meanwhile, all Euro 5 vehicles, which are predominantly petrol and diesel cabs, will be licensed until August 2024 and Euro 6 cars – which meet the latest emission standards – will be licensed until 2030.