By John Challen

When it came to creating an effective network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers, Southwark Council took matters into its own hands to enable a solution that maximised efficiency and convenience.

“Part of our EV strategy was to enable residents – especially those who don't have a driveway – to be able to park and charge on the public highway,” explains Ryan McGibbon, EV Infrastructure Manager at Southwark Council. “The brief was for anyone in the borough to have access to a lamp post column charger within a five-minute walk.”

Specific care was taken over installing the charge points at the right time and in the right locations. For example, initially, a lot of the charge points locations were based around residents who were either purchasing an EV within six months or who already owned one.

An important step for Ryan was mapping out the whole borough to plot where the chargers would be positioned, using infrastructure that was already in place, namely lighting columns. 

“Obviously we needed to make sure the lighting columns would be suitable, so we analysed the structural testing data for those columns,” he explains.

“We also needed to make sure the columns were at the front, as opposed to the back, of the footpath. If they were at the back, it wouldn’t be a huge problem because we could put some satellite bollards in place, but the costs of those extra installations would impact on the number of charge points, because the majority of the funding was being used for civil engineering works, and we wanted to keep these as low as possible.”

Registering interest

The scheme was designed to be as straightforward as possible for residents, who were encouraged to register their interest in a charge point via a council website. “When we got those applications, we undertook site surveys to make sure the locations were suitable,” Ryan says. “There are a lot of factors to take into consideration, such as other pieces of street furniture, making sure the footpath was wide enough and that you aren’t adding extra hazards.” 

Another key part of the process, says Ryan, was making sure the columns were fit for purpose, including being fed via a DNO (Distribution Network Operator), as opposed to a private entity.

“They need the full capacity and on a lighting column, you can’t get more than five kilowatts,” he states. “There are also different types and sizes of columns to contend with – so if you got heritage style columns, the doors are very small, and you can't put the equipment onto them because of the additional equipment you need to put into the column bases and [you] also [need to] attach the actual charge point to those columns.”

The council’s EV charging network now boasts more than 1,800 charge points – something that Ryan deems a success, especially in some areas of the borough where utilisation rates are up to 40%. He adds there has been a big spike in recent weeks, a trend that he expects to continue in the future. 

His advice for anyone else looking to implement a similar project? Putting in dedicated EV charging: “That’s something we didn’t do here, but we are looking at now. We are hoping to introduce 400 dedicated bays, which will really make a difference for EV drivers.”

He also advises looking as much data as possible to ensure the deployment phase is completed in the best and most efficient way possible.

Indeed, in recent weeks, Barnet Council installed 300 new charge points throughout the borough, aiming to hit 1,000 additional lamp column chargers, with Lambeth following a similar plan.

Read more: CIHT joins Working Group on Accessible EV Charging Infrastructure.