North Northamptonshire Council’s £3m plan for EV charge points
Council aims to install 250 charge points for electric vehicles (EVs) by March 2025 and 500 by December 2027.
There are currently 56 public access EV charge points in North Northamptonshire, located at 29 separate sites. That’s far short of the 2,800 charge points that independent consultancy CENEX saus the region will need to meet coming demand.
Photo by Chuttersnap
According to the council’s own estimates, there are currently 37,000 public access charge points across the UK and 720,000 will be required by 2030 given the rising take-up of EVs.
In March, the government set up the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) fund to aid local authorities in providing the needed charging facilities. From LEVI, North Northamptonshire Council was allocated £2,895,000 – but on the condition that it can demonstrate that it is capable of managing the fund and getting the new facilities installed.
To do so, a strategy has been drafted with objectives including the installation of 250 public charge points by March 2025, including charge points in all 12 North Northamptonshire towns by December 2025. In addition, the strategy aims to have 500 charge points installed by December 2027, with 80% of those residents who do not have off-street parking to be within just 250m of a public-access charge point.
With this draft strategy in place, a business case with further technical specifications is being developed, for delivery to the government by the end of next month.
Cllr Jason Smithers, Leader of North Northamptonshire Council, says: ‘Since we declared a climate and environment emergency in 2021, we have been working to develop our policies and identifying ways we can help residents. With the funding allocated from government, we are now well positioned to extend the local electric charging network.’
Cllr Matt Binley, Executive Member for Highways, Travel and Assets, adds: ‘It is great news that North Northants has been identified in round 1 of this funding from central government and, if Executive approve, we must now look to create a robust business case which demonstrates a strong rationale for charge point locations and the route we would take to improve infrastructure across the local area.
‘With the number of electric vehicle users growing, it is important that we look to the future and how the infrastructure needs to adapt to keep up with demand. We have already been considering this with the development of our electric vehicle infrastructure strategy and the funding received from Government would help facilitate the strategy.’
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