Issue - meetings

To consider the findings of the Task and Finish Group regarding electric vehicle rollout cross-county.

Portfolio Holder – Councillor Redford

In the absence of Councillor Wallace Redford, Councillor Heather Timms introduced the report which set out recommendations from the Electric Vehicle Charging Points Task & Finish Group, following the publication of their Group Findings report.

Members noted that following the work carried out by the Task & Finish Group, a report had been submitted to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee November meeting.  Councillor Timms highlighted that the Council had been proactive at obtaining grants to cover the cost of installing electric vehicle charging points across Warwickshire and would be looking to continue this work by investigating what was available nationally. 

Councillor Timms applauded the Task and Finish Group for a good piece of work and the report which included well thought out recommendations.  She recognised that future progress would be subject to securing national funding, which would allow the Council to pursue the work outlined.  She, therefore, proposed the recommendations as laid out in the group’s report.

Resolved:

The recommendations set out in the Task and Finish Group’s report, as at Appendix 1 to the report, be approved.

Councillor Sinclair (who sat on the TFG) informed the committee that:

·   In February’s Communities OSC they committee voted to monitor the roll-out of the charging points in a TFG

·   Monthly meetings were held between May-July 2022 and a range of concerns were considered across several subjects

·   The TFG made eight recommendations that focused on ensuring equality of EV charging points cross-county and how to increase the amount of charging points

·   In 2020 1% of vehicles were EVs, in 2030 this is expected to increase to 41%, 70% of charging points were predicted to be in private residencies so the Council needed to make up the rest

·   A comprehensive network needed to be set up before this to encourage drivers to switch to EVs

·   The eight recommendations are;

o   That elected members are updated regularly on a quarterly basis of the roll-out.

o   That officers should continue to seek funding opportunities to support that (a bid was planned for the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund)

o   Officers provide more information of the EV network to the public

o   Nuneaton and Bedworth are prioritised with EV points as they were behind on a charge points per 100,000 residents

o   Officers would monitor trials elsewhere e.g. the gully solution for charging with on-street parking

o   Members write to central government to ask for a change in the required planning act so that charging points could be closer to the highway’s boundary

o   Increase staff resourcing when funding permitted (the suggestion was a three-year fixed contract for an engineer to take on this work)

o   Look into traffic regulation orders (TROs) that allow EV only parking

In response to Councillor D Humphreys, Councillor Tim Sinclair stated that residents with EVs and on-street parking would be able to charge their cars from lampposts or the new gully system that was being investigated. The gully system allows a cable to be plugged into the house and go into the pavement to the car. The chargers themselves will be and will need to be a mixture of ultra-fast charging and trickle charging (charging overnight). These would need to be in different locations too.

Following a supplementary from Councillor D Humphreys, Margaret Smith (Lead Commissioner - Transport Planning) noted that there were grants for landlords who owned a carpark to put EV charging infrastructure in. One thing that was being looked at was EV charging points in supermarkets so someone doing the weekly shop with an EV could charge their car at the same time. EV owners only needed to charge their cars once a week. 

In response to Councillor Chilvers, Councillor Sinclair noted that they briefly spoke on EV charging points in supermarkets and WCC has a limited influence over getting supermarkets to implement EV charging points in their carparks. He concurred with the issue that his residents had with EV charging points being broken.

Margaret Smith stated that there were national issues with one of the providers (BP Pulse) but there were KPIs (key performance indicators)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5