Issue - meetings

Officers have been exploring opportunities to install Electric Vehicle Charge Points (EVCP) in council owned car parks using external government grants and/or Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding.

This report provides an update on progress made to date and requires a decision on progressing with implementation of EV.  It also highlights a point on which is the best method to fund, deliver and operate EVCPs across the District.

Recommendation

That Members agree to:

i)          Pursue the Electric Vehicle Charge Point proposals for Council car parks utilising the Option 3 Hybrid method and action plan (see point 3.7) but with a final decision on scheme implementation and delivery to be delegated to the Director of Finance in conjunction with the Lead Member to ensure timely project delivery.

ii)         Officers to continue to investigate further proposals for Off Street Electric Vehicle Charging in other Council car parks and liaise with Hertfordshire Highways regarding On Street proposals with any funding opportunities identified.

iii)        The production of a comprehensive Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy for Three Rivers District Council. 

Kimberley Rowley, Head of Regulatory Services introduced the report.

An external consultant has been employed by the Council who has been supporting officers moving the work forward.

The government has recently changed their funding options; the ORCS funding that is allocated directly to local authorities has now been changed to what is called the LEVI funding, and this is allocated to County authorities. Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) have been given an indicative allocation of £6,015,000 capital funding. The funding is aimed at residents with no access to on street parking but includes rapid chargers.

The aim of HCC was to implement EV chargers by the end 2024 (Quarter 4), however, the implementation is now likely to be pushed back to 2025 (Quarter 3-4), due to the information and evidence gathering required for the funding.

The Chair responded to questions raised by committee members, and concerns around the demand for EV chargers, explaining that the operators wouldn’t be suggesting the sites if they did not think these were viable for them.

There will need to be changes to the traffic regulation orders so cars that are not electric should not be able to park in parking spaces that are designated for electric cars.  This will initially only occur in the public car parks where there are existing TROs.

The Officer reassured the committee that officers will continue to look at the demands for EV chargers; the requests coming in are monitored by officers. HCC have done a lot of work on demand mapping to see where to those demands exist. They are looking at a 6 fold increase in charging points in Hertfordshire by 2023.

In response to a question raised around weight capacity assessment and EV charging operators; the Officer advised that none of the car parks being considered are multideck so the weight capacity would not be of concern. Officers firstly reached out to a Charge Point Operator, Blink. The identified operator already operates in Watford providing on street EVCP for Watford Borough Council and a number of other local authorities. They are already on the framework and TRDC could direct award to them.

An ORCs funding application has already been submitted to Blink, and it would enable officers to go ahead with at least 10 charging points at this stage. If the Council don’t receive the ORCs funding it would need to revert back to using the LEVI funding to pursue anything beyond our leisure centre car parks.

The Committee considered the recommendation, and a decision was made not to pursue the Aquadrome car park at this point due to future refurbishment proposals and constraints such as flooding.

Furthermore, in response to a request from the Chair for clarification; the Officer provided a summary of the original recommendation, and a proposed amended version of the recommendation as follows:

The proposed amended recommendation supports the hybrid model but brings forward the leisure car park sites jointly with the town centre car park sites using the identified CIL funding (if  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28