Agenda item

To consider an update on the following areas of the Electric Vehicle Strategy:

·       Public EV ChargePoint (EVCP) Deployment

·       Government LEVI Funding

·       GCC Fleet EV Migration

·       Arle Court EV Charging Hub

·       Zebra (Zero Emission Buses) funding

4.1       The Chair invited Steve Lowe, ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) Programme Manager, to give an overview of this item. Members noted the following points:

·         A high-level map at 2.1 of the report showed the deployment of public charge points to date. This included 33 locations with 4 charges per location and each district had at least 2 locations.

·         This deployment was 60% funded by Department of Transport (DfT) funding and 40% by GCC.

·         This phase of the strategy was aimed at providing on-street charging for residents who did not have access to a driveway. Whilst some of the locations were in busy town centres, the coverage was equitable across the county.

·         It was hoped that by providing residents with assurance they would have access to charging, this would provide an incentive to make the change to an electric vehicle.

·         Some of the areas had low utilisation at the moment (as shown in the graph on page 17) but this was expected to increase over time. The Council were also not trying to provide chargers in commercial locations as it was expected the private sector would fill this space, and local authorities would focus their resource on the less commercially viable locations for the benefit of residents.

·         For the next phase, GCC had been awarded £3m in LEVI funding from Government, in addition to £500K internal funding and £400K LEVI capability funding over 2 years.

·         LEVI funded Phase 1 would be delivered within the 2024-25 financial year and provide another 200 charge points across 50 sites. Locations were currently being identified and officers were engaging with local members on these.

·         LEVI funded Phase 2 required a tender process which GCC had begun to progress. This phase would expect to see a much larger volume of charge points installed as a concession arrangement gave the operator more control over the deployment.

·         Pages 22 – 23 gave an overview of the GCC Fleet Migration progress by location and the graph at 3.6 gave an idea of the already significant energy benefits of the change.

·         Within the new Arle Court Transport Hub, there were 100 contactless charge points being installed, and these will be activated in stages according to demand.

·         The final section of the report gave an overview of the £6m secured from DfT to introduce Zero Emission Buses.

4.2       In response to question about county coverage, which was referred from the Corporate Scrutiny Committee, officers advised that all district areas in the county were covered in the first phase of the Council’s deployment. When next year’s delivery operator was selected, there would be strict criteria around equitable coverage enforced to ensure this continued. Officers were also working with district councils to deploy charging points into their car parks, for example.

4.3       It was noted that often the biggest requirement for residential charging was within areas of parking contention, residents may be concerned that having a charging point installed outside of their house would have implications on their ability to park. This would be avoided where possible, installing them at the end of a street for example, but the solution would not be perfect for everyone. There had to be a compromise to enable access for those residents who wanted it. It was hoped that the sensitivity around location would decrease as the use of electric vehicles increased.

4.4       Officers added that they were waiting for direction from the DfT on the use of footway gullies to allow residents to run cables from their home to their on-streetcar.

4.5       In response to concern around grid capacity, it was noted that Government was tasking all major supply companies to work on this. GCC’s role in this area would be to ensure all the infrastructure was in place for when the grid capacity was available. This was an issue continually raised with suppliers and contractors.

4.6       A member raised concern that there was a potential issues arising around different providers using different apps to pay for charging, and therefore requiring the public to have numerous apps installed depending on where they stopped to charge. It was advised that all of the chargers deployed in residential areas in the county used one app. This was done so in the thinking that most of the users will be the same residents or guests charging overnight. Whereas the facilities at Arle Court, for example, had been upgraded to include contactless payment technology as it was more likely the users would be different each day.

4.7       There was a general discussion around the environmental and social implications of the move to electric vehicles. It was noted that the cost of vehicles at the moment excluded many residents from making he change, including young people, and there were concerns around the environmental impact of their production.

4.8       Officers recognised these concerns but explained that society had to make progress on decarbonising the way we travel, and electric vehicles were the best ‘worst’ solution available at the moment. It remained a transitional technology and was only one part of the Council’s multi-pronged approach. Officers would continue to work on encouraging modal shift, moving away from single use private vehicles and improving the public transport offer.           

4.9       Arle Court was just one of multiple future Transport Hubs that would be built in the county, these would act as ‘collector points’ for all different transport modes and then use electrified buses, for example, to connect people into city centres, places of work etc. Officers also noted the incredible pace of change with rail connections for Gloucestershire over the past few years.      

4.10    It was questioned whether the move to electric buses could come faster. Officers advised that there was internationally a massive push for electric buses, and the limitations on moving faster were things such as lead times on building the vehicles and work needed to ensure depots were retrofitted with the right infrastructure. In the meantime, work would continue to reduce emissions on existing diesel buses.