Electric Vehicle Charging Posts in Chorlton

You may have seen an article in yesterday's Manchester Evening News about how a grant from the Coalition Government is making it possible to roll out charging posts for electrical vehicles across Greater Manchester. I received the following notification about plans to place a charging point on Oswald Road*:

"The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) has provided a grant to deliver 160 Electric Vehicle Charging Posts across the Greater Manchester Region. There will also be a contribution from the Integrated Block and from Electricity North West (ENW). This total funding will be used to implement and maintain the Charging Posts for a minimum of 4 years. Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is managing the fund and they are targeting locations across all ten Greater Manchester Districts. Locations are proposed within Manchester as detailed in this report.


The proposed scheme will work as follows;

TfGM, supported by a supplier, will install, operate, maintain and retain responsibility for the Electric Vehicle Charging Posts.
TfGM, via the OLEV grant, will meet the construction costs.
The ‘back office’ (administration and charging for electricity) will by provided by TfGM as a managed service.
TfGM have drafted a Host Agreement for Local Authorities to sign in order to ‘Host’ the Electric Vehicle Charging Post.

Each charging post will allow two vehicles to be charged concurrently. Therefore, each charging post will require two dedicated bays for the use of Electric Vehicles.

In order for locations to be considered as suitable for Electric Vehicle Charging Posts, they must conform to the criteria of the OLEV grant and local infrastructure. The OLEV grant stipulates that, for off-street locations the land must be Local Authority owned. All sites must also be close (within 5 metres) to a mains electricity supply and be able to receive a reasonable GSM signal (in order for the post to communicate with the ‘back office’). Furthermore, sites should be located in safe locations and close to amenities where they are likely to be used and create a successful trial scheme.

Given the extremely tight timescales to deliver this project, some of the proposed locations have been already confirmed as feasible but some are still subject to approvals by others (TfGM, Electricty North West). As such, any sites that are not approved will unfortunately not be delivered.

Within the Chorlton ward, the following location is proposed and is being advertised on street until 13th March.

Oswald Street [sic]"


*I am presuming that this refers to Oswald Road not Oswald Street and have asked an Officer to confirm this.

Please let me know what you think.