Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member for Environment, Climate Change and Operations is attached.

Councillor Alan Quinn, Cabinet Member for Environment, Climate Change and Operations, presented the report which sought approval for a procurement exercise to appoint a supplier to install, operate, and maintain a network of EVCI aimed at supporting residents who do not have access to off-street parking.

Decision:

Cabinet:

1.    Approved the approach to procure a supplier to install, operate and maintain EVCI on Council land. The Council will use the available funding streams to match towards private investment from the supplier to significantly increase publicly available EVCI;

2.    Delegated authority to the Executive Director of Operations and Executive Director of Finance in consultation with the portfolio lead for Environment, Climate Change and Operations to award the subsequent contract once procured; and

3.    Delegated authority to the Executive Director of Place and the Cabinet Members for Strategic Growth and Environment, Climate Change, and Operations alongside the Executive Director of Finance to negotiate and agree terms for leases to site the charging points once a contract has been procured.

Reasons for the decision:

·         The Council has a target of being carbon neutral by 2038. To achieve this goal, we need to significantly reduce carbon emissions. A significant amount of carbon emissions come from petrol and diesel cars. One way to reduce these emissions is for people to transition to electric vehicles, which have zero emissions at the tailpipe and a reduced carbon impact overall.

·         There is roughly £2m of funding being made available to the Council to install EVCI for people who do not have access to off-street parking. We cannot use our existing EVCI concession contract to spend this funding as the existing contract is a concessionary arrangement, meaning Be.EV will only install in areas that are profitable and therefore we need a solution for areas that are not profitable i.e., on-street.

·         The Council does not have the resources in place to install, operate or maintain a network of EVCI. Therefore, we recommend appointing a supplier through a competitive procurement process to install, maintain, and operate EVCI. The Council can then combine this funding with investment from the supplier to increase the number of EVCI installed in Bury.

Other options considered and rejected:

The Council could own and operate the EVCI keeping 100% of the income generated to support the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure. This would still require a procurement process to appoint a supplier to install the infrastructure and carry out the operation and maintenance. This approach would not encourage private investment and shifts the burden of risk onto the Council.