Electric ‘hubs’ preferable to on-street charging, committee hears

Provision of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure should focus more on ‘hub’ sites that deliver a rapid charge, rather than slower chargers at very many on-street locations, a Parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Leeds City Council project manager Andrew Hickford told a Transport Select Committee hearing into zero emission vehicles that he questions “whether or not we need to put charge points on the street.

“In 2019 the average household vehicle did 7500 miles; that is less than 150 miles a week,” he said. “On that basis, you only need to charge once or twice a week at most. That means people do not need access to a charge point all the time, every day”.

Andrew spoke of some areas of Leeds – characterised by small, terraced properties with narrow paths and roads and no off street parking – where it would be very difficult to charge a vehicle.

He also expressed concern about creating “a kind of unofficial ownership of charge points outside people’s homes”, where people informally ‘adopt’ a parking space and block it from other users. “We would prefer a hub approach because that leads to high utilisation.

“If we put a charge point on a residential street”, he added, “it might only be used once a day”.

Also supporting the provision of rapid charging hubs is Transport for London’s transport strategy and planning manager Lucy Hayward-Speight. She told the evidence session: “One of the things that has been emerging from our work and understanding of all of this is the importance of moving towards hubs, rapid hubs in particular.

“That will really support those who need to be on the road, such as commercial users, taxis and private hire vehicles.”

On the issue of on-street chargers, she added: “We understand that the street clutter effect has meant that lots of authorities have been questioning the desirability of having lots and lots of charge points along close residential streets. I definitely want to flag the point around hubs being the way forward.”

Also giving evidence to the session was Transport for the North’s major roads director Peter Molyneux, who spoke up for the needs of electric vehicle owners in rural areas. “We must ensure that charging points that are not economically viable are somehow still installed to make sure that we have equity right across the range,” he said.

“Rural people are not only more reliant on the car, but their journeys are longer. With more people working from home, with our rural economies and our visitor economy, we need to make sure that there is the right network.”

Peter cautioned against urban areas receiving charging infrastructure first. “That does not work,” he said, “because if we are to give people confidence to move to electric vehicles, we need to make sure that the network covers everybody”.