Birmingham City Council has launched a major new project to expand the city’s on-street EV charging network in partnership with charge point operator Ubitricity.
The Council is carrying out a pilot deployment of 560 lamppost EV charge points across 82 streets in residential areas of the city where access to private off-street parking is limited or unavailable.
Ubitricity, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell, will supply, install, own, operate, and maintain the new charge points on behalf of the council.
The installation process is designed to minimise disruption and meets the council’s key requirement to avoid street clutter, while strategically placing charge points based on resident demand and grid connection availability.
Deployed using Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) funding, the first 300 of these charge points have already been installed, and the remaining 260 will be installed before the end of Spring 2025.
Councillor Majid Mahmood, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Birmingham City Council, said, “While our focus as a council is on delivering the Birmingham Transport Plan and encouraging people to swap private vehicles for public transport, we also want to ensure that, for those who require use of a car, we have the infrastructure in place to facilitate use of low or zero-emission vehicles.”
Stuart Wilson, UK Managing Director of Ubitricity, said, “Ubitricity is delighted to be supporting Birmingham City Council as they begin this journey to create one of the largest public EV charging networks outside London, encouraging the transition to electric vehicles, and helping to create a cleaner and healthier, environment for the people of Birmingham.”
