Purpose

The decision allows these public EV charging sites to go ahead (if feasible) and for the bays served by the EV chargers to be thereafter dedicated to ‘EV charging only’ according to the conditions set out in the original TRO consultation.

Decision

The decision was made to approve the Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) to create Electric Vehicle (EV) charging only parking places in the following locations, having confirmed whether additional footway clearance width was possible:

-        Parking spaces outside 7 Hockmore Street, Cowley, Oxford

-        Parking spaces outside 25 Water Eaton Road, Cutteslowe, Oxford

-        Parking bays outside of 101 to side of 131 Cuddesdon Way, Oxford, pending an alternative off-street site not being deliverable under the same programme

The installation of the public EV chargers and associated equipment will be carried out by OCC’s contracted public EV chargepoint operator Connected Kerb and will be funded via a combination of their private investment and central government grant funding awarded to OCC via the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) grant funding scheme.

Reasons for the decision

During the TRO consultation relating to these proposals, concerns were raised by active travel groups and some elected members that the footway clearance was less that desired to support active travel and a request was made by Cllr Epps to confirm what the footway clearance would be between the back of the EVCP and the back of the footway.

Similar sites – i.e. on residential streets – had been approved as part of same CMD when footway clearances were confirmed to be in excess of 1.5m metres (which is what is what the Inclusive Mobility guidelines state are what is needed to allow a wheelchair user and their companion to travel side-by-side), but it was requested that the project team confirm in each of the following cases whether additional footway clearance width was possible.

Below is the detail of what footway clearance is possible in each instance, all of which meet the minimum of 1.5m for this type of low footfall residential location:

-        Parking spaces outside 7 Hockmore Street, Cowley, Oxford – where it was reported that that a footway clearance in excess of 1.5m would be maintained, and subsequently confirmed that the maximum footway clearance possible between the back of the EVCP and the back of the footway is 1.5m.   Note that in this single instance, the EVCP will be installed, at a reduced distance of 348mm from the kerb edge -  rather than the standard 450mm – as an exception in order to make this site viable.  This exception has been approved by Vision Zero Team Leader Anthony Kirkwood as being acceptable from a safety perspective in this low-speed setting, and this will be monitored post installation.

-        Parking spaces outside 25 Water Eaton Road, Cutteslowe, Oxford - where it was reported that a footway clearance in excess of 1.5m would be maintained, and subsequently confirmed that the maximum footway clearance possible between the back of the EVCP and the back of the footway is 1.898 metres.

-        Parking bays outside of 101 to side of 131 Cuddesdon Way, Oxford - where it was not clearly reported what the footway clearance would be, but was subsequently confirmed that the maximum footway clearance possible between the back of the EVCP and the back of the footway is 1.798 metres.

Alternative options considered

In each of these cases, the alternative would have been to either:

a)    not approve these sites to go ahead at all, thereby failing to achieve the benefits intended in the programme of using central government grant funding to support the residents without off-street parking to transition to driving electric vehicles, or

b)    insist that EVCP in these locations be installed on build-outs on the carriageway, which would firstly greatly increase the costs of each site and potentially make it no longer financially viable within the scheme and secondly would mean the proposal could not go ahead as part of this same Traffic Regulation Order (as carriageway parking space would be reduced and the footprint of the scheme increased in a way that was not consulted on originally).

c)     insist that alternative locations were found in the area where greater footway clearances were possible, which may be a) simply not possible and/or b) would require new site visits and a new TRO consultation which would add significant costs and time delay to the overall programme.

Since the footway clearances remaining in each of these cases is equivalent to that remaining in other sites of a similar nature within this same set of Cabinet Member Decisions, it would seem hard to justify a differentiation here and it is therefore recommended that these sites too are approved for installation.