Birmingham City Council today announced the launch of a major new project to expand the city’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network. In partnership with ubitricity, the UK’s largest charge point operator, the Council is carrying out a pilot deployment of 560 lamppost EV charge points across residential areas of the city where access to private off-street parking is limited or unavailable.
This rollout represents the first project of its kind in the UK’s second-largest city and is expected to set a new standard for on-street EV charging.
ubitricity, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell and the UK’s largest EV charge point operator, will supply, install, own, operate, and maintain the new charge points on behalf of Birmingham City Council. This partnership is expected to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles by providing an accessible, convenient charging solution for those who rely on on-street parking.
The 560 charge points will be installed in lampposts on 82 streets across the city, with each point taking less than an hour to install. The installation process is designed to minimise disruption and meets the Council’s key requirement to avoid street clutter, while strategically placing charge points based on resident demand and grid connection availability.
(Left) Councillor Majid Mahmood, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Birmingham City Council, and (right) Stuart Wilson, UK Managing Director of ubitricity
Deployed using Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) funding, the first 300 of these charge points have already been installed, and the remaining 260 will be installed before the end of Spring 2025.
Transport accounts for around a third of CO2 emissions in Birmingham. In June 2019, Birmingham City Council declared a climate emergency and set an ambition for the city to become net-zero by 2030 or as soon as possible after that date as a ‘just transition’ allows. To reduce, and eventually eliminate emissions from transport, it is necessary to shift remaining vehicles to ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles, including electric vehicles (EVs). To enable the uptake of electric vehicles, a comprehensive public EV charging network across Birmingham is needed. As part of this effort, the city is focused on ensuring that EV charging infrastructure is accessible to all residents, including those who use taxis, car clubs, and commercial fleets, as well as private individuals without off-street parking.
“While our focus as a council is on delivering the Birmingham Transport Plan and encouraging people to swap private vehicles for public transport, we also want to ensure that, for those who require use of a car, we have the infrastructure in place to facilitate use of low or zero-emission vehicles," said Councillor Majid Mahmood, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Birmingham City Council.
ubitricity installed 301 charge points between 15th October and 24th December. As one of the quickest mass rollouts ubitricity has headed, they put the accelerated installation down to close collaboration with the council, with the city’s wide-ranging commitment to EV infrastructure paving the way for other cities to follow suit.
“ubitricity is delighted to be supporting Birmingham City Council as they begin this journey to create one of the largest public EV charging networks outside London, encouraging the transition to electric vehicles, and helping to create a cleaner and healthier, environment for the people of Birmingham," said Stuart Wilson, UK Managing Director of ubitricity.
ubitricity charge points can be found via the Zapmap app and web map. They share live status and availability at all times, making planning for charging and finding an available charge point simple.
Charging sessions can also be paid for within the Zapmap app via Zap-Pay - which offers easy payment with 20 charging networks across the UK.
