Climate change: Work starting to bring more electric vehicle charging points to Sheffield – including at Meadowhall

New electric vehicle (EV) charging points will be coming to Meadowhall and Sheffield streets to encourage more people who don’t have off-road parking to make the change.

At present, there are no on-street EV charging points in the city, but the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority has begun work on a £10m, five-year programme to provide 150 charging sites in the region.

One of the first will be sited at Meadowhall shopping centre, with another at Barnsley Interchange.

The news comes after Sheffield City Council pledged to work on “a vision for every household in Sheffield to be within walking distance of a public EV charging point”.

A proposal put forward by Conservative councillor Lewis Chinchen (Stocksbridge and Upper Don), which was agreed by the July full council meeting, argued that electric vehicle ownership is skewed towards people who have off-street parking.

His motion stated that the council “believes that we need to ensure that the 40% of households in this country that do not have access to off-street parking have ways to conveniently charge an EV”.

The council will look at working with other local authorities and the private sector.

Councils massively behind on electric vehicle charging points

A study from charge point operator Liberty Charge shows councils on tight budgets are falling massively behind Government ambitions with only 10% (30,290) of the target of 300,000 charge points so far installed.

Also, 90% of households are more than a five-minute walk from their nearest charge point.

EV leasing company Novuna Vehicle Solutions had questioned whether any of the nine Metro mayors, including former South Yorkshire Mayor Dan Jarvis, had spent any of their city devolution deal budgets intended to create economic growth on providing charging points in 2021.

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We asked the mayoral combined authority (MCA), which has a £30 million annual budget from the deal, what progress has been made.

Their answer is that work has started on a £10m, five-year programme to build EV charging infrastructure across South Yorkshire.

EB Charging Ltd have been appointed as the supplier for the first phase of the project.

It will deliver around 150 new public EV chargers, including both fast and rapid chargers at council-owned public car parks and Park & Ride sites.

The authority says it expects the first charging points to be installed this month and rolled out during the rest of 2022/23.

‘We’re committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions’

A spokesperson for the MCA said that locations were chosen to support the use of public transport and the decarbonisation of taxi and private hire fleet, as well as provide charging for residents without off-street parking, who cannot charge their cars at home.

The project has been developed by the housing and infrastructure team at the MCA and funded through the Get Building Fund.

The spokesperson said: “We’re committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions in South Yorkshire by 2040.

“As part of that, we’ve started work installing electric vehicle chargers across the region.

“The £10m programme will install around 150 new public charge points for electric vehicles, including rapid chargers at council-owned public car parks and Park & Ride ride sites including Barnsley Interchange and Meadowhall.

“We expect the first charge points to be installed in September and work to continue into 2023.”

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