Electric vehicle charging option dropped from retail park improvements

Electric vehicle charging points are to be omitted from plans to improve the layout of a Birmingham shopping centre car park – despite an expected increase in the number of EVs using the city’s roads.

The city council said installing the charging infrastructure at Stechford Retail Park threatened the commercial viability of the scheme.

A £13m road improvement scheme is being planned for the area, funded by Birmingham City Council and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP.

The project, which includes the entrance to the retail park, is designed to improve journey times through the area and increase vehicle capacity on the local road network by removing the existing gyratory system, widening Station Road (between Burney Lane and Flaxley Road) and constructing a new road bridge structure over the River Cole.

The plan is intended to unlock economic growth in the area by reducing congestion through improved infrastructure.

The council is expected to issue a Compulsory Purchase Order to acquire the land needed to implement the scheme. The revised layout of the retail park’s car park had been agreed with the landowner to minimise delays.

It was thought the provision of electric vehicle charging points might encourage EV use in the area and a condition for the points was included in the original plan.

The city’s planning committee was told the applicant in this instance was not the owner of the retail park but the local authority itself. It had concluded that while desirable, the points were not a requirement.

“It is now apparent that the implementation of EV changing points are not viable in this instance,” said the report to the committee.

“The applicant (city council) has indicated that implementing electric vehicle charging points would adversely impact upon the viability of the scheme. This is due to a number of factors, such as inadequate existing infrastructure on site, the costs associated to the delivery of such provision along with the risk of long term maintenance liabilities associated with such provision.

“The applicant has indicated that these issues could adversely impact upon the public purse and possibly upon the wider road improvement scheme as further negotiations between the applicant and landowner would be required, in addition to the CPO process, which could impact upon the deliverability of the wider scheme.”

It argued that the improvement scheme, once implemented, would help reduce the area’s carbon footprint due to improved traffic flows.

It added: “It is considered that whilst the loss of electric vehicle charging points on site is regrettable, the provision of the wider road improvement scheme coupled with improvements to cycle storage, disabled and parent/child parking on site would result in large scale benefits to the wider community.”

Councillors said the loss of the charging points sent out conflicting messages when the city was committed to reducing emissions and encouraging the use of electric vehicles and other pollution-reducing transport.

However, they approved the proposal, saying the improvement scheme was desirable because of the economic gain it would deliver.