Agenda item

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

Councillor A Quinn, Cabinet Member for Environments, Climate Change and Operations gave an overview of the report which sought approval for Transport for Greater Manchester, undertake the procurement to appoint a supplier to deliver the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Programme on behalf of Bury Council

The Council recently appointed Be.EV to install Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI) under a concessionary contract on Council land. This contract is aimed at installing areas in rapid charging infrastructure in areas with a good throughput of traffic that is likely to turn a profit for the operator.

The earlier report submitted to cabinet on 12^th July 2024 outlined a proposal for Bury Council to utilise this funding to directly procure a supplier to install, operate and maintain EVCI on Council land. However, following this Cabinet report Government Office for Low Emissions Vehicles (OZEV) made it clear that they would prefer and favour collaborative working from city regions to support better funding distribution and efficient delivery of services.  As a result, it was decided that TfGM should work with the ten Greater Manchester Authorities to carry out the procurement of an EVCI supplier on behalf of all the Greater Manchester Authorities. The successful supplier will keep the income from the network and operate it independently from the Council

Decision:

Cabinet:

·         approved that TfGM, undertake the procurement to appoint a supplier to deliver the LEVI Programme on behalf of Bury Council.

·         approved the signing of the Collaborative Memorandum of Understanding and delegating power to the Director of Operations in consultation with the Director of Law and Democratic Servies for the final approval of the final terms of the MOU.

Reasons for recommendation(s)

1.    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.

2.    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.

3.    We cannot use our existing EVCI concession contract to spend this funding.

4.    The Council does not have the resources in place to install, operate or maintain a network of EVCI.

5.    Therefore, we recommend appointing a supplier to work to install, operate, 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.

Reasons for recommendations:

·         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.

·         The Council does not have the resources in place to install, operate or maintain a network of EVCI.

·         Therefore, we recommend appointing a supplier to work to install, operate, 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.

Alternative options considered and rejected:

·         Option 1 a. 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. We also do not have the internal expertise at the Council to operate and maintain electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

·         Option 2 b. We could do nothing. However, this would mean we would miss out on the opportunity to access significant funding to provide our communities with a wider range of accessible EV charging infrastructure.