The Government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund was launched in 2022 to support local authorities in England to work with the charge point operator industry to improve the rollout of local charging infrastructure.
The focus of the funding is on supporting residents who do not have access to private off-street parking.
Nottingham City Council is already a leading authority for charge point infrastructure, having utilised grant funding since 2018 to establish the D2N2 publicly accessible network.
This has introduced almost 170 charge points into strategic off-street locations such as park-and-ride sides and council-owned car parks across the City.
In May 2023 the Government advised that Nottingham City Council’s LEVI capital allocation had been confirmed at £1,704,000, alongside separate capability revenue funding to fund resources to support the delivery of the LEVI programme.
Following submission of the business case in November 2023 confirmation has now been received that the application has been assessed, and the DfT propose to issue 90% of the allocation (£1,533,600) on or before 31 March 2024.
The remaining 10% allocation is planned to be released by 31 March 2025 once a series of conditions have been met.
To prepare the business case, procurement and delivery of the LEVI programme the Council has been working with strategic transport body, Midlands Connect, alongside several other Midlands-based local authorities, including Nottinghamshire County Council (the lead authority), Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council.
Approval is sought to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with Midlands Connect to join the Midlands consortium formally.
Benefits of the consortium approach include fulfilling the DfT’s business case requirements, sharing best practices and achieving better economies of scale by leveraging private sector investment from charge point operator(s) to increase the number of charge points across the area.
Key tasks to be delivered by the Council over the coming months include participating in a joint soft market test and procuring a charge point operator(s) to install charge points in the city.
Another requirement of the LEVI programme is to prepare an Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Strategy.
Work has commenced on this, and an EV Infrastructure Survey will be published shortly seeking views on charging needs from existing and potential new EV drivers.
Given the emerging role of the East Midlands County Combined Authority with respect to the preparation of the statutory Local Transport Plan, it is proposed that the Council produce an interim EV Strategy to fulfil the requirements of the grant and work with the Combined Authority to further refine the strategy contents in due course.
Further to this Key Leaders Decision, the Council plan to progress
an Executive Board report to approve the programme and delivery approach in 2024/25.
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