Chichester to join countywide contract to deliver more EV charging points

Early this year, the county council entered into a 15-year contract with Connected Kerb for the planning, installation, operation and management of the county-wide network.

During a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday (October 4), members agreed it was time for Chichester to jump on board.

Penny Plant, cabinet member for environment & Chichester contract services, said the contract was showing ‘early signs of success’.

The sites to be offered up for use will be mainly council-owned car parks but will not include those at: East Pallant, Cawley Priory, New Park Road, Basin Road, Cattle Market, and Northgate.

Things may change for Northgate, which has been held back until a planned redesign can be completed.

Most of the charging points – which will join the 18 already installed in the district – will be aimed for use by people who do not have off-street parking so cannot install their own equipment.

They will provide 7-22kW of power, while some 5-10 per cent of the charging points will be ‘rapid’, providing 50kW+ of power.

Mrs Plant said: “The install locations would be the subject of a lease for the footprint of each charge point.

“In this way the council will continue to receive any parking revenue and maintain control over the tariffs.”

While starting at 15 years, the county council contract comes with the option of extending it by five years.

Two years ago, the council chose not to join a previous county council scheme, which has since been aborted.

Liberal Democrats called the decision to sign up this time ‘a long overdue U-turn’ and said it was ‘better late than never’, with group leader Adrian Moss questioning whether the district council would have had more control of the contract if it had joined earlier.

But Alan Sutton, cabinet member for housing, communications, licensing & events, said: “I think we were ahead of the game on this, that we had 18 charging points already in the district.

“Also, the risks and benefits were looked at very closely before we made the decision not to join the contract originally.”