Sandwell Council has successfully secured £300,000 of grant funding from the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) as part of its On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS).

 The grant funding will be supported by £100,000 of match funding from the council in order to deliver approximately 37 charge points across the borough.

 The charge points will be located in residential areas across Sandwell, allowing households without off-street parking to charge electric vehicles while at home. The chargers are expected to be used mostly for overnight charging.

Currently around 80 per cent of all electric vehicle (EV) charging takes place at home, showing the critical importance of residential charging to the adoption of EVs.

The charge point installations are being delivered as part of the Black Country Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) Strategy, which was consulted on in 2020.

The £300,000 funding is part of a larger Black Country ORCS bid securing £1.15m of grant funding to deliver approximately 317 charge points at 158 locations across the region.

Consultation is underway for the sites that have been shortlisted for installations, with interested residents having been contacted via post for their views. Installations are expected to begin in the summer.

Councillor Ahmad Bostan, Sandwell Council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “This funding will ensure that Sandwell is well-placed to support the move towards electric vehicles. It will deliver key infrastructure requirements and enable residents to get around in a sustainable way.”

For more information about the Black Country Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) Strategy visit www.sandwell.gov.uk/ev.

If you want to find out more about electric cars and understand the implications of switching for you or your business, Energy Saving Trust is holding an ultra-low emission vehicle information event on Wednesday 6 April.

For further information on how your Sandwell business can do more to protect the environment visit our ‘going greener’ page.

 

[Photo by Robert Linder]