Birmingham City Council accelerates EV charger roll-out

Birmingham City Council has announced the launch of a major new project to expand the city’s EV charging network.

In partnership with ubitricity, the UK’s largest charge point operator, the council is carrying out a pilot deployment of 560 lamppost EV charge points across residential areas of the city where access to private off-street parking is limited or unavailable.

This rollout represents the first project of its kind in the UK’s second-largest city and is expected to set a new standard for on-street EV charging. The project is being delivered in response to data showing that most electric cars in the city are kept at homes without access to a private driveway.

Not having access to overnight charging nearby can act as a deterrent to EV ownership. This initiative, part of Birmingham’s wider Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy, is aimed at improving access to EV charging infrastructure.

The 560 charge points will be installed in lampposts on 82 streets across the city, with each point taking less than an hour to install. The installation process is designed to minimise disruption and meets the council’s key requirement to avoid street clutter, while strategically placing charge points based on resident demand and grid connection availability.

Deployed using Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) funding, the first 300 of these charge points have already been installed, and the remaining 260 will be installed before the end of spring 2025.

Transport accounts for around a third of CO2 emissions in Birmingham. In June 2019, Birmingham City Council declared a climate emergency and set an ambition for the city to become net-zero by 2030 or as soon as possible after that date as a ‘just transition’ allows.

It said that a major element of this involves reducing and eventually eliminating emissions from transport, through the adoption ofultra-low and zero-emission vehicles, including EVs. To enable the uptake of electric vehicles, it said, a comprehensive public EV charging network across Birmingham is needed.

As part of this effort, the city is focused on ensuring that EV charging infrastructure is accessible to all residents, including those who use taxis, car clubs, and commercial fleets, as well as private individuals without off-street parking.

Councillor Majid Mahmood, cabinet member for Environment and Transport at Birmingham City Council, said: “While our focus as a council is on delivering the Birmingham Transport Plan and encouraging people to swap private vehicles for public transport, we also want to ensure that, for those who require use of a car, we have the infrastructure in place to facilitate use of low or zero-emission vehicles.”

Stuart Wilson, UK managing director of ubitricity, added: “ubitricity is delighted to be supporting Birmingham City Council as they begin this journey to create one of the largest public EV charging networks outside London, encouraging the transition to electric vehicles, and helping to create a cleaner and healthier, environment for the people of Birmingham.”