One of largest ever electric vehicle charging point rollouts underway in West Sussex

The ground-breaking project will deliver transformational improvements to EV provision, providing better access to charging facilities, particularly to those without off-street parking. Residents will be consulted over where they want the charging points located.

It is being delivered by Connected Kerb, which will install and maintain thousands of charging points across the county, in partnership with West Sussex County Council and most of the district and borough councils.

Councillors, alongside Connected Kerb representatives, gathered at Hazelgrove Road Car Park in Haywards Heath, on Monday (June 20) to mark the rollout, which will take place over the next decade.

Attendees heard it was believed to be the biggest in the world outside of China and the ‘eyes of the UK’ would be on West Sussex to see how the project fared.

Currently there are two tiers of access to the necessary infrastructure for electric vehicles. While it was described as ‘pretty easy’ for people with driveways to charge their cars, it is far more difficult for households who only have on-street parking.

Research suggests one in four UK households intend to buy an electric car within the next five years as the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles approaches. But there is only one public access on-street EV charge point for every 52 EVs on the country’s roads.

The project could deliver more than 3,000 new charge points and up to 7,000 within a decade.

To use one of the Connected Kerb charging points all drivers have to do is download an app, scan a QR code or input a unique location number, give their payment details and plug in their charger.

Most of the equipment is underground with only the charging socket visible, meaning not only is equipment cheaper to replace if it falls victim to vandalism, but the points are more discrete and less bulky in the street scene.

Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb, described how the three main focuses of the new EV network were reliability, affordability and convenience. He said the ambition showed by West Sussex was ‘phenomenal’ and his company was ‘proud’ to have been selected to deliver its EV network.

By putting more charging points in places where people leave their cars regularly, they would remove one of the main barriers to EV ownership.

He added: “We are looking forward to starting work on this game-changing project for electric vehicles in West Sussex. The challenge of scale is very real – no other council has undertaken this number of charging points in a single roll-out – but we are committed to ensuring that EV becomes accessible, sustainable and affordable for every EV user in the county.”

Deborah Urquhart, cabinet member for environment and climate change at WSCC, said they had examined what the future might look like and decided to be proactive and put in place a strategy for EV charging infrastructure rather than ‘sitting on our hands’.

They were ‘fortunate’ to be partnering with Connected Kerb and organisations in neighbourhoods and parishes could join the rollout if they wanted chargers for their village hall or community centre car parks with ‘huge interest’ expressed already.

Although Chichester District Council is the only second-tier authority not to have joined the partnership so far, Mrs Urquhart said it was not precluded from doing so at a later date and they could still install charging points on-street across CDC’s area.

The project is one of a number WSCC is deploying to reduce emissions. It operates two large solar farms, is rolling out more solar panels on buildings it owns and is seeking to boost active travel by improving cycle routes. Mrs Urquhart added: This is a milestone moment for the county as these charge points are the first of many to be installed across West Sussex, servicing residents’ electric vehicle charging needs.

“They offer people without off-street parking convenient and reliable charging as they will be sited both within car parks and on-street.

“We know that some residents have hesitated to make the switch to electric vehicles because of a lack of public charge points: we hope this launch will encourage them to reconsider, make the change and, in turn, have a positive impact on carbon emissions and air quality.

“I’m looking forward to working alongside Connected Kerb and our district and borough council partners to deliver the network of West Sussex charge points.”

David Edwards, chair of Arun’s environment committee, said they already had plans for chargers in car parks in Bognor Regis, Littlehampton and Arundel. This emphasises ADC’s ‘complete commitment’ to addressing the climate crisis and EV chargers ‘would go an awful long way to helping with this’,

Given the size of the project he said it was ‘incredible’ that West Sussex is ‘leading the way’.

Stephen Hillier, Mid Sussex District Council’s cabinet member for economic growth and net zero, described how the first chargers to be installed ‘are being well used already’.

He said: “For those people that can afford electric vehicles we know there is demand and we have got to provide the infrastructure.”

They already have chargers in Mid Sussex's three major towns, with plans to get them into villages and parishes ‘as soon as possible’.

Ruth de Mierre, MSDC’s cabinet member for leisure and parking, echoed the importance of spreading out charging infrastructure across all areas not just big town centres. She added: “For the health of our communities this is the only way forward.”