Major Sheffield city centre multi-storey car park plans new electric charging facility

Raw Charging, with agents NTR Planning, asked Sheffield Council for permission to create a substation and underground cables to prepare Q-Park Riverside, Millsands, for electric charging.

In their application agents NTR Planning Ltd, on behalf of Raw Charging, said: “The design of the substation has been prepared and assessed against the development plan and it is considered that it will have no adverse effect on local character or the operation of the site. It will help facilitate the provision of a new electric vehicle charging facility that will be provided within an existing building and which falls outside of planning control.”

The 533 space multi-storey car park already has four charging points. It has not yet been revealed how many more vehicles the new facility will support.

No members of the public have commented on the plans so far.

To read the plans in full or comment, visit: https://planningapps.sheffield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RR3Z99NYIQM00

Electric charging in Sheffield

New petrol and diesel vehicles will be phased out by 2030 with all new cars and vans to be zero emissions at the tailpipe from 2035 but the country’s infrastructure has not been keeping up with demand.

Ciara Cook, research and policy officer at New Automotive, a non-profit organisation supporting the UK’s transition to electric vehicles, said it was important local authorities prioritised charging infrastructure to help “make sure that it makes economic sense to change to an electric vehicle”.

Sheffield is falling behind other major cities for its electric vehicle charging infrastructure, according to analysis by the BBC earlier this year.

It showed the city had just 28.3 charging devices per 100,000 people, compared to 50.9 in Leeds, 69.2 in Nottingham and 40 in Liverpool.

The council is currently exploring the potential for charging from street light columns, subject to funding and resources.

“This would help us to work through the technical issues associated with charging from Sheffield’s existing infrastructure and understand the commercial viability as well as practical issues with the approach,” the council stated on its website.

A map of all charging points across the city and further afield can be found here: https://www.zap-map.com/live/

You can request charging points to the council by emailing [email protected].