Supplementary evidence from Peter Ollivere (ELV0143)

Lords EV Inquiry - Supplementary Questions

Hope you are well and apologies as I was meant to send this the back end of last week but got waylaid.

Community Hubs – County Durham

In terms of “community hubs” the Weardale Electric Vehicle Accelerator (WEVA) project is possibly the best example, with 9 EVCPs (17 sockets) in a small village (see more info below).  

As part of our rollout strategy across the wider County, we have generally been targeting community centres, leisure centres and as I mentioned at the inquiry, DCC owned car parks, close to residential areas. These are usually the ‘low hanging fruit’ as DCC own the land in most instances which helps with getting the necessary land ownership and permissions in place.  We have got many single installations in and planned at village community centres which are usually community hubs in their own right.  We also have multiple EVCPs at other DCC facilities such as town sports centres (Peterlee, Consett, Staley etc) where we have put in banks of 4 EVCPs together in the sports centre car parks. These ‘mini hubs’ have been working well as local residents and users of the sports centre or community centres both use them. As you would expect, we have also targeted car parks near shops and services too, sometimes with multiple EVCPs.

Another project worth a mention is the Derwent Valley Car Club which has followed some of our EVCP installations. Car clubs have followed our infrastructure and there are now car clubs at Shotley Bridge and Blackhill and another one planned to open soon at Burnopfield. This car club scheme also extends across the County Boundary into Gateshead where there are another two car clubs established in the Derwent Valley.

We will soon be installing 2x EVCP (so 4x sockets) at Leadgate Community Centre which we would expect locals to use and pop in to use the centre when they are charging their cars. Also, as part of a levelling up project, DCC will be installing some at the Coastal village of Crimdon at ‘The Dunes café’ which again should prove popular with community use.

Project name: WEVA (Weardale Electric Vehicle Accelerator) - The plan was to install 10 chargepoints in Stanhope, a small rural village in Weardale to ensure that all residential premises which have no off-street parking have a CP within a 5-minute walk of their home. In the end, due to land ownership complications at one site, we ended up putting in 9 EVCPs (17 sockets) rather than 10 sites, but we were still very happy with the final project. All sites have access 24 -7 and where necessary, additional security features has been included to encourage use by residents. The WEVA project also involved establishing an EV car club in Stanhope and it was planned that the installed CPs would also be used to support this car club. Unfortunately, though, I’m not sure a car club was ever launched in Stanhope. The total project costed at £120,250. £65- £75,000 from ORCS and the balance from DCC sources.

Regards WEVA, here is where the sockets went, which may be of use. All sites were located within or near areas without suitable access to off-street parking.