Ambitious electric vehicle charging strategy for Cheshire West and Chester
Local electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) strategy aims to make borough regional leader by 2025 and national leader by 2030. The council is already on track to meet this first target.
The EVCI strategy sets out how the council will support the delivery of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, with charge points for public use as well as for the council fleet and based at council workplaces.
Photo by Michael Fousert
This new strategy is part of the council’s response to both the air quality management plan and the wider climate emergency affecting much of the world. In both cases, reducing the use of fossil fuels is expected to have significant benefits to the environment, public health and the economy. Transport is the second highest contributing sector to carbon emissions in the borough, so decarbonising transport is critical.
The council’s climate change response plan (CERP) sets out several requirements to achieve this, which include reducing the need to travel, increasing the use of sustainable modes of transport and transitioning to zero-emission vehicles.
In addition, the new EVCI strategy supports the council’s application to the Office of Zero Emission Vehicle’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) fund, set up to deliver a step-change in the deployment of local on-street charging infrastructure. The council has already been assigned a provisional £2m from the fund. If the application is successful, a full business case will be submitted by November 2023, with funding awarded for 2023-24 to enable the council to leverage private-sector investment and achieve rapid expansion of the borough’s public charging infrastructure network.
A six-week public consultation on the draft version of the strategy took place between 1 February and 15 March 2023. Responses showed high degrees of support for the policies, from both those who already drive electric vehicles and those who don’t.
Councillor Karen Shore, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Transport says: ‘There were over 200 responses to the consultation earlier this year. 70% of respondents said they agreed with the aims of this strategy. Most respondents (53.9%) considered that the electric vehicle charging infrastructure will have a positive impact upon them.
‘Our consultation showed that the ability to charge at home or away from home were the two most important factors to those considering whether to buy an electric vehicle and at present most respondents did not consider our existing charging infrastructure to be sufficient to meet existing demand.
‘The strategy has 14 main policies including only supporting installations which do not cause an obstruction or disruption to other users, particularly pedestrians and cyclists.’
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“(53.9%) considered that the electric vehicle charging infrastructure will have a positive impact upon them”
That’s crazy. Do the other 56.1% not breathe air like the rest?
I hope they include making sure motorway services have enough power provision. M6 last week – chargers cannot function because not enough power is being delivered to the site. Despite there being plenty of chargers…
46.1%, surely. But good point. Where on the M6?
Northbound, maybe 3 service stations from Congleton exit…? And damn my bad maths!!!
It was good to see lots of new chargers in a few service stations wrapped in bubble wrap, and a big new station at Wickes in Stockport. Change is coming….