Purpose

This decision achieves the following key
outcomes:
 
-         
OCC will receive the
necessary grant funding contribution from OxCity to be able to pay
its chosen supplier (Connected Kerb) to deliver an additional 140
new GULO-funded chargers within its wider LEVI contract
-         
The Department for
Transport grant funded GULO will successfully be completed –
meeting OxCity’s obligations to the funders at the Department
of Transport and providing an additional 140 public EV charging
sockets in Oxford
-         
The existing estate of
GULO P1 chargers will be operated by Connected Kerb under the OCC
contract and will continue to provide a valuable service for
residents
The responsibility for on-street public charging will sit
with OCC which is clearer, more appropriate and easier to manage
contractually than the prior temporary arrangements

Content

In 2013, OxCity were granted special permission to be able
to install, own and operate public EV chargers on the public
Highway in order to deliver what was at the time an innovative
trial of this type of EV charging technology as part of the Go
Ultra Low Oxford project (GULO).
 
This was always intended to be a short-term practical
arrangement to enable the OxCity-led project to go ahead; under
normal circumstances OCC would not want assets to be installed and
operated on the highway by third parties with whom OCC had no
direct contractual relationship.
 
By 2015, around 51 chargepoint sockets had been delivered
under the GULO project part 1 (GULO P1) but by 2022 the delivery of
remainder of the scheme (GULO P2) had not been completed by
OxCity.  Around the same time in 2022
the Department for Transport announced that OCC – as Highways
Authority and strategic transport lead for Oxfordshire - would be
receiving Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) grant funding and be
expected to lead on the strategic planning and practical delivery
of this large-scale public EV charging programme across the
County.
 
It was agreed between OCC and OxCity at this point that no
further public EV infrastructure would be installed on the Highway
by OxCity, and that this would instead be delivered by OCC under
their own chargepoint operator contracts, as was always in the
intention in the long-term.
 
As a result of this decision around changing
responsibilities, it was decided that:
-         
a) OCC – via
their chosen chargepoint operator - would adopt and be responsible
for the existing on-street infrastructure that had been delivery by
OxCity in the GULO P1 project
-         
B) OxCity would
transfer the remaining £402,000 of unspent GULO funding to
OCC along with the responsibility for delivering the remaining 140
on-street EV charging sockets required to complete the GULO P2
project (to which Ox City insist on continuing to be responsible
for to the funders at the Department of Transport).
-         
c) In order to repay
Ox City for their investment to date, OCC would pass to Ox City up
to £451,000 from the income generated by the whole GULO
charging estate over the next 15 years
 
A
legally-binding GULO agreement has been drawn up to reflect the
above responsibilities and financial and practical arrangements
relating to the above decision.
 

Reasons for the decision

The reasons for this decision are to allow the most
effective delivery and management of public EV charging estate on
the Highway in both the short and long term.
 

Alternative options considered

The alternative option would have been to allow OxCity to
continue to own and operate public EV charging infrastructure on
the Highway and to continue to deliver the remaining 140 GULO P2
chargers on the Highway under the previous agreement.
 
This would have made the estate difficult to manage and
would have led to further delays in the new infrastructure being
delivered, and in the existing infrastructure being updated and
replaced.  It would also lead to
continued uncertainly from public perspective about where the
responsibility for EV infrastructure on the Highway sits between
OCC and OxCity.