The Cabinet will, at its meeting on 13 July 2022, consider a report on the Oxford City Council Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy. Councillor Louise Upton, Cabinet Member for Health and Transport, Mish Tullar, Head of Corporate Strategy and Vikki Robins, Project Manager – Innovation (Environmental Sustainability Team) have been invited to present the report and answer questions.

The Committee is asked to consider the report and agree any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet.

Cllr Upton, Cabinet Member for Health and Transport introduced the report which set out the Council’s approach to ensuring a robust, quality and equitable deployment of charging infrastructure across the city.  The Council had set out a road map and action plan to become a net zero Council by 2030, and had set out a framework for delivering electric vehicle infrastructure, with the Zero Carbon Oxford Partnership, to reach a target of net zero carbon emissions for Oxford by 2040 or earlier.

Cllr Upton highlighted the opening of the new superhub at Redbridge, with capacity for charging 400 vehicles and the trademarked GUL-e initiative by the ODS Group, which were potential income generating streams.  The Council did not have funding in its Forward Plan to provide public EV charging infrastructure, and would be looking to government grants.

Vikki Robins, Project Manager – Innovation gave the Committee an explanation of the dynamic purchasing system and its benefits.  She also provided the Committee with the positive results of the public consultation which sought to provide information on the Council’s approach to driving forward its electric vehicle infrastructure strategy.

During discussion, the Committee noted the following:

·         The public consultation stretched across organisations, including the taxi community, small business enterprise and inclusive transport groups.  Whilst the Project Manager – Innovation did not have the data regarding response rate from ethnic minorities, this information could be sought for the Committee.

·         Ebikes used three pin plug in and were not compatible with charging points across the city. They were part of active transport delivery solutions that the Council was working on, and were not included in the scope of the strategy.

·         Work was taking place to give better accessibility to disabled road users and the Council was working with Motability to facilitate this.

·         Pre-work was being undertaken with the Planning Department regarding the placement of charging points in households to be able to give assurances during the planning process.

·         Reliability of chargers had been a challenge, however the dynamic purchasing system would address some of these issues with service level agreements, contract take-overs and breaches of contract, giving a more reliable service.

·         Work was being undertaken with bus companies, supporting them to run their services more profitably and enabling them to provide more bus services for residents, however the Council recognised the impact of rising bus prices.

The Committee resolved to make the following recommendations to Cabinet:

1.    That the Council explores setting a requirement for large housing developments to have electric vehicle charging spaces which are allocated exclusively for car clubs, in addition to electric vehicle charging spaces available for private cars.

2.    That the Council reviews the projected uptake figures for electric vehicles contained in the strategy to ensure they are realistic; namely

a.       Ensuring that the projected figures take into account the later 2035 phase-out date of some non-plug-in hybrids (which are not considered EVs by the strategy), and

b.      Checking the very high near-term EV uptake that would be required to hit any of the given 2026 targets.

3.    That the Council explores ways in which it could incentivise local organisations, businesses and partners to ensure that any electric vehicle charging infrastructure provided by them is reliable and in a good state of repair.