The London Borough of Barnet is set to install almost 1,300 EV charging points, taking its total to 2,000 by the end of next year, after the council secured a funding of £5.19 million government grant.
This means that Barnet will have the most EV chargepoints of all boroughs — and also one in every six of all of London’s public charging points, given the total on-street charging points in the whole of Greater London is around 11,500, according to the Department for Transport.
The Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles’ On-Street Residential Charge Point Scheme (ORCS) will pay for 60 per cent of the total project costs, which will comprise the installation of 500 lamp column charge points, as well as up to 793 non-lamp column residential charge points in 64 locations around the borough.
Barnet’s Environment and Climate Change Committee Chair, Cllr Alan Schneiderman, said: “Investing in 1,300 more EV charge points puts Barnet on track in its plans to become a net zero borough and make our air cleaner.
“By hosting one of the capital’s largest public charge points programmes we’re removing the anxiety that can come with owning an electrical vehicle, giving confidence to our drivers that they’ll never be far from somewhere to plug in. Steering our way to a more sustainable transport infrastructure shows how we’re caring for people, our places and the planet.”
> Council launches UK’s biggest EV charging points project
In September, the Barnet Council had appointed Trojan Energy to deliver a £4.65 million project aiming to install 510 charge points in 34 residential streets. The borough, which is the second largest by population, now has the capital’s second-highest rate of electric vehicle car ownership.
After the announcement of last year’s project, Trojan Energy had said that it will deploy its DEICER system within the project. The system allows Barnet-based EV drivers to obtain real-time chargepoint availability updates via their mobile phone, either by app or text.
Last week, we reported that Surrey Council had also announced the largest on-street EV charging point scheme in the UK, aimed at delivering 10,000 public chargers at over 1,500 locations across streets and public car parks by 2030 after a £60 million investment from one of the leading private EV charging contractors, Connected Kerb.
As for Barnet, the move firmly puts it in the driving seat of delivering public EV charging in London, providing more incentives to residents to switch. The council also said that it has been shortlisted in the Future Places category in the 2023 LGC Awards for the first phase of its EV charge point installation programme.
