With electric vehicle network coverage in the UK still uneven, we look at how a public-private strategy helped one local authority beat national averages from a near-perfect start, and with no upfront costs.

In January 2021, Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council had almost zero effective charging points per 100,000 residents, well below the national average of 20. The Greater Manchester council had already exceeded that figure last year.

Reaching 50 fast and ultra-fast points per 100,000 didn’t happen overnight, and the speed at which this local rollout unfolded has set precedents that others are now building on. A simple, easy-to-replicate plan saw the council invite Be.EV, the UK’s fastest-growing electric vehicle network, to the table for a plan that could accelerate the rollout nationally.

‘Trafford was originally part of the TfGM [Transport for Greater Manchester] rollout. So we’ve put in some rapid and very limited numbers of rapid chargers. All 10 boroughs in Greater Manchester have received some of this support,” said Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV. “Trafford recognised early on that they needed private funding to meet their emissions targets. They saw that we had a contract with the transport authority and they asked for private funding.”

Be.EV then carried out analyses of sites in Trafford to assess suitability. Initially they looked at local authority car parks, with the reports taking into account where power was available and the housing stock. Areas that were disproportionately underserved by private driveways, limiting residents’ ability to install private charge points, were considered a priority.

However, the contract also required an even spread across the area, including local town centres, regional centres and residential areas. Sites were chosen and Be.EV was responsible for all expenditure. The profits from the infrastructure are used to repay those costs over time, before the council reaps longer-term financial rewards after the debts are paid off.

“Eventually we sat down and said, ‘OK, we’ve done municipal parking lots, now let’s look at recreation centers, libraries, let’s fill in the gaps.’ Then we ran out of public land and started looking at private,” Ghafoor continues. “In some cases, the council was the landlord, so they approached tenants and explained the idea. Some of them said, ‘OK, get your team involved, we’d like to hear from them.’

‘There’s really nothing the authorities can do. But I know places where they’ve had car parks for decades, but when you ask about EV charging points, they say no decision has been made about what to do with the car park in the long term,’ he tells us. ‘Nothing will ever happen, but it’s that attitude. Then you have progressive councils who basically say, ‘we need charging points, we don’t have the money, we have the land and we can give you access.’

Ghafoor believes the majority of councils appear to be taking the first approach, and a big problem is central government guidance. Or lack thereof. We hear of various approaches from Downing Street asking for guidance to be published for local authorities. And hear of confusing spending on lamppost charging points ‘that no one will use in five years’ because they are such low wattage that it would take almost two days to fully refuel an average EV. The picture is one of confusion.

“We needed a partner who understood the challenges of the area and what Trafford is like. The fact that many areas have driveways and residents can afford to have charging points installed at home,” said Cllr Tom Ross. With 16 years as a local politician under his belt, including stints as chief financial officer and 12 months as mayor of Trafford, he clearly sets a high standard for knowledge of the area. “But they also needed to know that there are lots of other areas that are predominantly terraced, so you need access points there.

‘As an organisation, like most local governments, we are busy. So focusing on such a specific project is something we can’t do internally. We were looking for someone who would work with us, who would bring expertise and knowledge of working with local communities, key stakeholders, to roll out EV charging much faster.’

By the time the contracts were formally signed in 2022, Trafford had seen coverage rise to 10 chargepoints per 100,000 people, a figure that has since increased fivefold. In tangible evidence that the approach is working, we’re told the process has effectively cost the authority nothing at a time when budgets are incredibly tight, and legal advice has confirmed that this doesn’t affect complex procurement rules. Understandably, then, the project has attracted interest from neighbouring areas and international investors.

Stockport, another of Greater Manchester’s ten councils, is now also working with Be.EV and the model has been refined, speeding up processes and driving down costs. So while the original approach often saw a single application submitted for a neighbourhood charge point, which could fail, now multiple sites are chosen and two or more applications submitted, effectively gambling that once the application process is complete, it will result in a site being secured for new charging facilities.

Be.EV has also just confirmed a £55m funding round from NatWest and KfW IPEX-Bank, the largest of its kind in the UK sector. This brings the company’s rapid and ultra-rapid points to over 1,000 nationwide, with priority given to communities and authorities outside the M25, as provision in London is already significantly better than the rest of the country.

“There are two things we can do tomorrow,” Ghafoor says when asked about his views on the UK’s EV network. “One is to get third parties to open up their country. The other is to look at the electricity grid. It’s not set up for the world we’re looking at. It’s set up for the 1970s. So the administrative process, the way it’s regulated, different rules, the whole thing is a huge mess… If we could get that right, this grid and the overall decarbonisation of the country would go much faster.”

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Pictures: Martin Guttridge-Hewitt