Southend-on-Sea City Council is looking for a private sector partner to install more than 1,000 EV chargers in residential areas across the city over the next ten years.
The council has received £1.45m of Government funding to help deliver the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) scheme and wants the partner to match fund this amount.
Southend-on-Sea currently has 27 public charging points operated by four operators within council-owned car parks, but no on-street residential only charge points.
The new contract will cover both new residential chargers installed and the existing car park chargers.
It will also feature a mix of technologies including slow lamp column style 5kW chargers, and faster pedestal/bollard style free standing devices ranging from 7-22kW.
The procurement process will run until the middle of February 2025 and the new partnership is expected to launch next summer with about 300 chargers installed by 2027 in the areas of greatest need and demand.
Cllr Daniel Cowan, leader of the council, said, “This investment will supercharge our electric vehicle infrastructure across the city and with an 84% increase in plug-in vehicles seen across the city in the last two years, it is much needed.
“All 17 wards have been looked at to identify the approximate number of roads without access to private parking and therefore likely to be in greater demand for public on-street charging provision.
“Sites for installing EV charging infrastructure have not been decided at this point and will be developed once a partner is appointed.
“The council has spoken with charge point operators as part of the tender development process and have received high levels of interest and positive feedback from the market and I am looking forward to seeing the responses to the tender.”
