Liverpool City Council has selected Shell’s subsidiary, ubitricity to install a network of 300 on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging points into existing lampposts.
This project will treble Liverpool City Council’s existing network of 150 charge points to 450, making it the third-largest public charging network in the UK behind London and Coventry.
The locations of the charging points will be chosen by local residents and businesses.
With this investment, Liverpool City Council hopes to address the gap in EV adoption following analysis from the Department for Transport, which found that the North West had 76% fewer public EV chargers per 100,000 people than London.
Cllr Dan Barrington, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Highways for Liverpool City Council said:I’m delighted we’ve begun to install this new network of EV charge points as it provides a huge boost in tackling poor air quality and reducing the city’s carbon footprint. This programme puts down a real mark of intent to provide the necessary infrastructure to help the move away from petrol and diesel powered cars.
The fact that the roll-out is being led by community requests means the points are going where the demand is needed most which means they’ll be getting maximum usage. And hopefully the demand will grow, meaning the need for more charging points to be installed.
The new ubitricity charging points are installed directly into existing street lampposts and charge at a speed of up to 5kW.
They take just under 2 hours to install and the rollout is expected to be complete by Spring 2023.
Toby Butler, UK Managing Director of ubitricity said:Liverpool is investing in an impressive on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging network, making the transition to EV much more accessible to their residents. In line with their plans to reach Net Zero by 2030, Liverpool is helping to lead the country in decarbonising their roads and improving air quality. By creating such a large and accessibly public network, Liverpool City Council is paving the way for the residents of Liverpool who want to switch to EV.
