Report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) attached

The Executive considered a report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development), which sought approval of the draft Manchester Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy.

The Executive Member for Environment and Transport advised that the Government’s Taking Charge Strategy published earlier this year sought an obligation on local authorities to develop and implement local charging strategies to consider how to best assist in the delivery of an accessible public charging network. The Manchester Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy (MEVCS) had been developed to meet this requirement and to set out the Council’s main focus for the provision of EV charging infrastructure within the city. 

The main focus of the strategy was in relation to public charging although it did note that the Council also had a role to play in transitioning its own vehicle fleet, encouraging growth through planning requirements for new developments and in generally raising awareness as well.

It was proposed that the council would assist in facilitating the installation of supplier owned, funded (possibly utilising existing grant funding opportunities), maintained and operated EV charging infrastructure within its own car parks and at facilities with parking such as leisure centres, parks, libraries, etc. These were proposed to be predominantly ‘fast’ chargers which would allow users of the car parks to top up their batteries and, where the car parks were operational 24h hours a day, may also allow for overnight charging by residents. It was also proposed that the Council could consider leasing small parcels of land for the development of charging hubs made up predominantly of ultra-rapid and rapid chargepoints which may be more suitable for those drivers with higher mileage requirements and for those who are more likely to charge when the battery levels are very low.

The draft strategy was not proposing the introduction of on-street public chargepoints at this time although it was considered that such locations may be suitable for particular groups such as taxis/PHVs as well as car club vehicles. There were a number of reasons for this including potential damage, pavement obstructions, visual street clutter, etc. Whilst technology did exist to connect EV chargepoints to lamp posts, the majority of lamp posts in the district were located at the back of the pavement and it was not considered appropriate to trail cables across the footway. Connecting the lamp post to a charging bollard at the kerbside could again cause issues of street clutter and pavement obstructions and would be a more costly solution. Lamp post chargepoints were also slow chargers generally operating at around the 3kW range which was now slower than many home chargers that could be purchased.

Councillor Leech stated that one of the largest challenges in trying to get residents to move to using electric vehicles was the ability to provide off street charging.  He sought clarification as to whether consideration was going to be given to charging facilities from the footway for terraced properties.  The Strategic Director (Growth and Development) state that theissue of off street parking for terraced properties had been looked at in detail but currently there was too many associated risks, such as trip hazards, to include proposals within this strategy at the present moment.  It was noted that the technology for charging vehicles was changing very quickly and that this may be an area the Council looks at in the future.

Decision

The Executive approve and endorse the Manchester Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy.