Written evidence from the West of England Combined Authority (ELV0130) 

West of England Combined Authority – Response to Environment & Climate Change Committee Investigation: ‘Electric Vehicles’

1. Executive summary

• The Combined Authority (CA) supports the government’s aims to decarbonise vehicles and the ban on sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 and the further aim for all vehicles to be zero emission at tail pipe by 2035.
• These are ambitious targets and government will need to support local authorities in ensuring that the necessary infrastructure is in place across the country to support the transition of electric vehicles (EVs).
• Across the West of England, we are working to deliver more EV charge points to support the switch to EVs for residents and businesses. The CA, along with the three Unitary Authorities that make up the region (Bath & North East Somerset, Bristol, and South Gloucestershire) has a target to be net carbon zero by 2030, and reducing emissions from transport will be key to achieving this.
• There have been some disagreements around the nature of on-street residential charge points, which have caused issues in our own region and have resulted in delays to delivery.
• More strategic delivery and funding powers for Mayoral Combined Authorities and local transport authorities would be welcomed to ensure on-street charging is delivered at the necessary speed to meet local and national ambitions.

2. EVs in the West of England

• Across the West of England, the region’s EV charging network, Revive, has been rolling out charge points to support the switch to EVs and greener transport.  Revive is publicly owned by the region’s UAs (B&NES, Bristol, South Gloucestershire & North Somerset).  
• To date, 280 Revive network charging bays have been installed through the Go Ultra Low West programme, funded through a £7m grant from Government. 
• Revive offers a mix of 50kW rapid chargers, together with 7kW and 22kW fast chargers. A 50kW rapid charger will provide around 50 miles worth of range in just 17 minutes.  
• The scheme is free to join and operates on a pay-as-you-go basis. Users can locate charge points across the region via the Travelwest website (Revive charging network - Travelwest) or using the specific Revive filter on ZapMap (the most common method of locating chargers for EV users).
• Development work is underway to expand the Revive network using £5m from the Combined Authority’s (CA’s) Green Recovery Fund – expected rollout 2023-2026. 
• The CA has ambitious plans to take a leading role in the strategic roll out of EV charging infrastructure and we are developing an Action Plan which will set out where we need to get to and how we will achieve our aims. 
• Our work indicates that we need just over 4,400 fast EV charge point and 690 rapid EV charge points across by 2030 to meet our goals and support the transition to net zero (this includes chargers which will be provided by third party charge point operators on private land, such as supermarket car parks). 
• The public sector will also need to invest in charging infrastructure in areas where the private sector is less likely to intervene due to being less commercially attractive.  
• For example, low use can hold back the deployment of chargers by the private sector in rural areas. Low-power residential chargers, including on-street chargers, can also be challenging for private operators due to slower charging speeds and smaller margins on the sale of energy. This means that some public sector intervention will be required. 
• The Government’s upcoming Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund provides an opportunity to help improve the viability of lower-powered residential chargers and address this gap in charger provision. Our ‘stage 1’ funding submission was completed in May 2023 and helped the CA to successfully secure an allocation of funding under ‘Tranche 1’ of the Fund. This will see the CA’s £6.64m capital funding grant be released to us in spring 2024, following two further funding application submissions.
• To access our LEVI funding grant, the CA is expected to demonstrate that it can secure private sector match-funding to deliver a mass roll out of EV charging infrastructure. We are therefore undertaking a competitive procurement exercise to identify a suitable private sector delivery partner(s) for our bid, with several potential delivery partners already identified.

3. Issues with delivery

• We have been working closely with the region’s UAs on the roll out of EV infrastructure, as outlined in section 2 of our response.
• However, there were delays due to disagreements about the location and extent of lamp column and other on-street charge points in residential areas.
• We currently have no powers to make a definitive decision and resolve these issues. In this event we worked with UAs to resolve these issues and move forward with delivery of new charging infrastructure, without compromising on our original intended scheme. However, this took time.
• If we are serious about speeding up the roll out of EV infrastructure, then local transport authorities – such as Mayoral Combined Authorities – with responsibility for delivering or overseeing EV programmes need to have the powers to decide (after due consultation and engagement) what infrastructure should be delivered where.
• Without this there is the risk of either deadlock or sub-optimal decision making.
• Furthermore, previous central government funding has allowed for multiple models of delivery and operation for EV infrastructure, including wholly publicly owned and operated as well as models such as public-private concession partnerships. As a region that has chosen to pursue and build up a publicly owned and operated EV infrastructure offering (Revive), the change in focus to public-private partnership – and the focus on new Subsidy Control 2022 legislation – is presenting delays in further funding this model, and therefore rolling out new infrastructure.

4. Future delivery observations

• The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) – has placed an obligation on Combined Authorities to develop collaborative funding bids, with the support of their constituent local authorities, for future EV charging infrastructure grants (including the upcoming LEVI Fund).
• We have received praise and recognition from OZEV for the collaborative approach we are taking to the development of our LEVI application with the West of England’s EV Charging Working Group. This includes joint working with North Somerset, as a previous partner in the Revive network since 2017 (advice from the funding support body indicates that this joint working is likely to help the CA to achieve more favourable contract terms from its LEVI procurement work).
• The obligation to develop collaborative funding bids results in our constituent authorities signing up to the CA’s objectives for using the grant to access funding in their areas.
• These objectives will be embedded in funding agreements between the CA and our constituent authorities, which will hold them to greater account and in future prevent changes in direction without the CA’s consultation that would cause delays as significant as detailed in section 3.