Agenda item

Report of the Director of Transportation and Highways

The Cabinet Member for City Services considered a report of the Director of Transportation and Highways that sought approval to award the concession contract and execute all necessary legal documents with the successful tenderer, for the On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme.

Coventry was at the cutting edge of the automotive industry and a leader in innovation. Electric vehicles lay at the heart of this development and following a number of successful bids, the city council had installed over 200 residential electric chargepoints city wide. A further 200 chargepoints were currently being installed and would be operational by end of April 2021. The programme was intended to future-proof the city’s transport infrastructure for the increase in electric vehicle ownership in line with national Government policy, with the Government having committed to ending sales of new diesel- and petrol-powered vehicles from 2030.

In line with this commitment, the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) had allocated £20m of funding for on-street residential chargepoint projects. The funding available was for 75% of the capital costs of procuring and installing the chargepoints and associated dedicated parking bays (where applicable). This funding had been made available to Local Authorities in a grant agreement format.

The scheme was intended to meet the needs of residents and therefore the requirement from OZEV was that the chargepoints must be installed in residential areas where there was limited access to off-road private parking.

The Council had over the past three years successfully submitted four funding applications to OZEV securing grant funding to the value of £1,446,010. This funding was being used to install a mix of slow and fast chargepoints on residential streets across the city.

There was still the opportunity for the Council to bid for additional funding from OZEV, however, the current Charge Point Operator (CPO) contract had now come to an end and a new CPO needed to be procured. The intention was to publish tender documents to the value of £1.5 million (over a two-year period) which would allow the Council to bid for additional funding when it became available and allow the Council to explore a fully funded option by the CPO. A Proc 2 was submitted to Procurement Board and was approved on 24th February 2021.

Tender documents for a concession contract were published on 9th June 2021 with a return date of 9th July 2021.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member for City Services:

1)  Following evaluation of received tenders, approves the award of a concession contract to the successful tenderer.

2)  Delegates authority to the Director for Transportation and Highways and the Director of Law and Governance to execute all necessary legal documents with the successful tenderer.

3)  Notes that the submission for grant funding is made to Office for Zero Emission Vehicle for up to £500,000 per year for the next two years, which will be used to install charge points if successful.

4)  Notes the advertisement of Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETRO’s), Temporary Traffic Regulation Orders (TTRO’s) and Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO’s) as necessary, to safely install charge points at various locations.