Portsmouth City Council will discuss its Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (EVI) strategy, which details plans to support EV adoption in the city by enabling and supporting access to charging infrastructure.
With the city forecast to have more than 38,000 EVs by 2034, the EVI strategy outlines the council’s plans to expand the city’s chargepoint network to support residents, commuters, visitors, and transport and fleet operators in the transition to EVs.
The strategy will be brought to a Transport Decision Meeting for adoption to support future EV initiatives in the city.
READ MORE: Portsmouth bus stops get information screen upgrade
To help deliver the changes proposed by the EVI strategy, the council has been successful in a bid for £887,430 in funding from the UK Office for Zero Emission Vehicles for up to 320 new lamp-column chargers across the city as part of the third phase of the On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS).
The procurement approach for the latest phase, as well as formal adoption of the EVI strategy will also be discussed at the Transport Decision Meeting.
Additionally, a further £3,682,000 from the UK Depatment of Transport’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund has been allocated to support the installation of more public chargepoints, to help residents to charge their EVs even if they don’t have off-street parking.
Peter Candlish, cabinet member for transport at Portsmouth City Council said: “We know that more and more electric vehicles are likely to be on our streets in the coming years, so it’s vital that we discuss our strategy for making the city EV-friendly, as well as how we can best use funding for EV drivers and owners in Portsmouth.”
Discussion about Portsmouth’s EVI strategy follows recent and ongoing issues with some EV chargepoints in city, after distribution network operator Scottish and Southern Energy Networks raised a concern about some chargepoints.
Efforts are underway to reactivate the remaining chargepoints, and 41 of the existing on-street chargepoints are reportedly back online and available for EV drivers.
“Although frustrating, such issues are not unusual when an organisation is an early adopter of new technology,” added Candlish.
“The council has learned from these experiences and is committed to ensuring that any future chargepoints will avoid similar issues when the third phase of the ORCS scheme rolls out.”
Achievements and innovations in EV charging infrastructure will be celebrated at the third annual CiTTi Awards, which will be held on 26 November 2024 at De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London. Nominations are open now! Please visit www.cittiawards.co.uk to learn more about this unmissable event for the UK’s transportation sector