Objective 1: Policies A to C

As a densely populated island city with narrow streets and terraced housing many areas of Portsmouth do not benefit from off-street parking and suffer subsequent parking congestion posing a real challenge in providing electric vehicle charging infrastructure for residents. This why we are continuing to do deliver the on-street residential chargepoint scheme via lamp column solutions, where chargepoints are housed inside lamp columns to minimise street clutter and costs. This will be rolled out to meet current demand and then strategically placed across the city to meet exponential future demand for on-street electric vehicle infrastructure.

It is important to ensure that all council installed electric vehicle infrastructure is accessible to all EV drivers by providing sufficient sized accessible bays and Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) to meet their needs. It is imperative to reduce the number of vehicles overstaying in designated EV parking bays, as this will help improve equitable access across the city to Portsmouth’s EV infrastructure. By limiting usage on appropriate locations, this will help deter EV owners from overstaying in certain locations. This could include time restrictions or financial disincentives.

This policy aims to expand Portsmouth’s off-street charging network with fast chargepoints to increase the efficiency at which our residents can charge. It is important to understand that residents will all have diverse needs when it comes to charging their electric vehicle and we must not rely on the success of Portsmouth’s EV infrastructure being dependent on one mode of charging. Portsmouth’s EV infrastructure must be versatile.