Worcestershire Council has been criticised for not considering charging cable gullies within footpaths as a means of getting electricity to EV drivers without driveways in Worcester.
The Council has set out a detailed strategy for EV charging solutions including for those residents without off-street parking to help enable them to make the transition to EVs.
The Council said these would be conveniently located and should not hinder other footway or highway users in the process.
It said nose-to-kerb on-street parking locations were favoured as this ensures the least disruption to the footway from cables and structural charging components. Lamp post charging was not a viable option as lamp posts in the county are in the main located to the rear edge of the footway. This would mean cables crossing the footway. Charging cable covers, ramps, mats, protectors or other products that cover cables running on or through the footway were also not supported as were charging cable gullies within footways due to the structural integrity of the footway being undermined and any resulting issues.
The Council’s report said that last year there were 16,558 fully or partially electric vehicles registered in Worcestershire, with 280 chargepoints registered for public use. However, 30% of households have no access to off-street parking, equating to nearly 80,000 households and of those households, 92% are not within a five-minute walk of a publicly accessible chargepoint;
According to Worcester News, one councillor said the County Council’s EV strategy “doesn’t work for Worcester” while another questioned why charging cable gullies were good enough for other councils but not for Worcester.
