Bidding war for car charging points is ‘madness’ says mayor
TRACY BRABIN has said it is “madness” that areas are being forced to bid against each other to win Government funding for new electric vehicle charging points.
The Mayor of West Yorkshire said it was wrong that a “beauty contest bidding war” approach was being taken to the issue.
Speaking at an event in Leeds called Realising Regional Growth: What next for West Yorkshire? organised by the Centre for Cities think tank, Ms Brabin said: “We know where we need them, we know what the challenges are with back-to-back houses and where they are needed on the street and community positions.
“We know city centres need more EV charging points if we are going to get EV cars coming in rather than petrol cars.
“We know what is needed but Government is telling us we have to bid into Government who don’t know us. It is just madness.”
Ms Brabin said it was one of several issues where devolved powers are required to help deliver better regional responses to climate change issues.
“Having power and money over flood defences, for example, early intervention into flooding, solar panels, wind farms – all of these things we have no authority over.”
The Government is seeking bids for an initial £10m pilot scheme to build new EV infrastructure, ahead of the launch of a full £450m bidding process.
The intention of the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund is to “help local authorities to dramatically scale up infrastructure provision to level up provision across the country, and to negotiate good commercial terms”.
The Government’s electric vehicle infrastructure strategy said the fund “will be flexible in its approach, to match the level of public subsidy to the specific need in different local areas”.
It added: “We recognise the current spatial disparities in the provision of EV infrastructure across the UK. When allocating funding, consideration will be given to places that have not previously received funding for EV infrastructure, and those where chargepoint provision is currently low.
“We are launching a £10m pilot of the LEVI Fund to provide an early opportunity for local authorities to scale up their local charging provision and maximise the potential for private sector finance.
“The pilot will test how we can most effectively support local authorities procuring chargepoint deployment by trialling different delivery mechanisms, business models and technologies.”
The Government’s recent Union Connectivity Review revealed Yorkshire and Humber has the worst electric vehicle charging network in Great Britain. The region has just 21 public charging points per 100,000 people – just one quarter of the total available in London. The only place in the United Kingdom with worse coverage is Northern Ireland, with just 17 charging points per 100,000 people.
We know what is needed but Government is telling us we have to bid Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire.