Portsmouth to ramp-up EV charging infrastructure

Portsmouth city council is to increase the availability of on-street EV charging points in the city, through the installation of 50 points on 34 roads in the coming months.

Locations for the trial scheme were initially identified via resident requests, and are now subject to further consultation.

Portsmouth city council has outlined plans to install EV charging points on 34 streets

Charge-point operator ubitricity will be responsible for the points on a three-year trial basis. These will be powered through street lamp columns (either directly or via a bollard) with users to be charged on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Councillor Lynne Stagg, Portsmouth’s cabinet member for traffic and transportation, said: “We want to encourage greater use of electric vehicles, so are introducing the infrastructure to support this. We hope this will give residents the confidence to invest in electric vehicles when the time comes to replace their cars.

“We have aspirations for improving and maintaining healthy air quality in Portsmouth, to reduce pollution levels and benefit public health. As more residents use electric vehicles, communities will benefit from improved air quality and will lower their carbon footprint.”

OLEV

A number of public charging points are available to Portsmouth residents — predominantly at car parks around the city — but the council is keen to increase the on-street charging infrastructure available to residents to cater for an anticipated increase in the number of electric vehicles on the road in future years.

Funding for the charging infrastructure has come from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).