West Devon Borough Council EV Strategy Consultation Summary and Recommendations

A consultation on the Council’s EV strategy took place between 6^th June and 6^th July 2023.

The consultation was survey based with links posted in Council bulletins, on social media with a PR sent to media agencies in advance of the consultation beginning. The survey was short and asked respondents to rate their agreement with our chosen actions on a sliding scale, the end of the survey had some open-ended responses where participants were able to write about opportunities for the council’s fleet as well as anything else they felt might be missing from the strategy.

43 people responded to the consultation and out of all the questions asked, respondents predominantly agreed or strongly agreed with the actions.

Q1: We’re looking to identify opportunities to support research and innovation in electric vehicles. One part of this would be to submit a new bid under the new Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure scheme. This would involve a call for sites to identify areas for off-street rural charging hubs. Do you think this action would benefit your area?

Q2: We’re looking to promote and support community charge schemes, such as Zap-Home and Co Charger. Both organisations have a network of residences with home charge points of users that have decided to share them with other EV drivers.  Would supporting these organisations be beneficial in your area?

Q3: We’re looking to promote the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) Workplace Charging Scheme to businesses and workplaces in the district. The scheme provides eligible businesses with support towards the upfront costs of the purchase and installation of EV charging points. Do you think us promoting the scheme is worthwhile?

Q4: We want to work with Devon County Council, OLEV and the National Grid to install ten more charging points at Council-owned car parks. Would this be beneficial to EV drivers in the West Devon?

Q5: We want to encourage supermarkets, rail stations and other partners and stakeholders to deliver EV charging points at other key destinations across West Devon. Do you think this is worth us doing?

Q7: Do you think our EV strategy should include investigating other methods of e-mobility, such as e-bikes or car sharing?

Two open ended questions were asked,

Q6. What else do you think the Council can do to help improve the number of EV charging points in the West Devon?

And

Q8. Is there anything the Council should specifically be doing as it transitions its "light vehicle" fleet to electric vehicles?

In terms of question 6, there were some comments and suggestions that warrant a written response, these are as follows.

Comment	WDBC Response
I have sent in a separate (long) briefing paper, describing how to reduce the installation costs by first checking the electricity distribution maps.	We have received this and are exploring the suggestion in house
Provide secure parking for electric bikes	This is out of scope for this strategy
The major problem for EV charging is that the electricity infrastructure is already limiting the number of houses that can install a charger  in anyone street as the cables aren't big enough to take the load so WDBC needs to lobby the grid to increase its electricity cabling otherwise you won't be able to deliver many charging points.	We currently have regular dialogue with National Grid through our existing EV charging schemes and recognise this is a problem specifically with fast and rapid charging. Costs for upgrades often make fast and rapid charging not viable however where we can pool needs and requirement we will do this and seek funding to be able to unlock some of these barriers
For rural areas such as Milton Abbot, purchasing small areas of land that could be used as village car parking as well as ev charging would reduce road congestion as well as provide ev charging. For example, a field above the pub at Milton Abbot would provide both and improve parking for the pub, village hall and the church.	This would be cost prohibitive for a Local Authority on its own to manage, however we will work in partnership where we can.
It would be good to put charging points at community hubs such as schools, village halls and church sites. These would be non-profit making organisations.	This is something that can be explore under action EV.1
There is a charger in west Devon council office car park with no details as to if it just for council use, staff use or public use, there are EV chargers in the private car park by the library I have never seen them used the building is empty and there are no details on the chargers on if they can be used and by whom perhaps a bylaw that charger business owners should make it clear if charging is open to public	We will be reviewing charging requirements at key council assets and to balance business continuity against access of charging for the public
Ensure planning approvals require EV charging	2021 Part S building regs now require this, minimum standards exist in planning now for commercial, between 11 and 22 kW.
Help Parish councils and community buildings identify and install community charging facilities in their parishes. (3 similar comments).	A call for sites will be conducted, sites collated through this exercise will inform a bid under LEVI in collaboration with Devon County Council and other Devon Councils

As for question 8, there were some comments and suggestions that are beneficial to explore or comment on

Comment	WDBC Response
Make charging points available to the public	We will be reviewing charging requirements at key council assets and to balance business continuity against access of charging for the public

A separate written response was provided by a resident which outlines potential locations for EV chargers off the A30 at Sourton, this is being reviews by our assets team.