Portsmouth City Council has announced plans to more than triple the number of on-street chargepoints over the next three years.
This step forward is part of the council’s ongoing commitment to advancing sustainable travel options for a cleaner, greener city, including rental e-bikes and e-scooters throughout Portsmouth, and 62 new, zero-emission electric buses which were introduced in March.
The Council has been awarded over £4m in funding and is currently in discussion with operators who are tendering to install up to 320 new on-street chargepoints, which are planned to be installed by spring next year.
Cllr Peter Candlish, cabinet member for transport, says: “We know that the number of people choosing EVs is increasing in the city, so this is a vital boost to help people make the change to EVs, following the recent issues with on-street chargers in the city over the past year.”
Last November, nearly 100 on-street charging points for EVs were disconnected after safety concerns were raised by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN).
The concerns related to how the charging points were installed, using the electricity supply from lamp columns and, following advice from SSEN, Portsmouth City Council decided to disconnect all 98 on-street charging points.
The council continues to work with chargepoint operators and SSEN, and plans to re-energise over 20 more of the existing EV chargepoints over the next six weeks, ensuring that safety concerns have been addressed and necessary modifications made.
Meanwhile, three new rapid chargers are available in All Saints car park on Church Street, with one of the allocated spaces being the first in the city to be made large enough for drivers who need more space, such as people with blue badges or drivers of larger vehicles.
As part of the council’s recently adopted EVI strategy, new approaches to EV charging will be explored, including ‘gulley charging’ across pavements, as well as even more public chargepoints at key locations.
