An electric vehicle charging specialist has partnered with a London council to deploy on-street chargers to support under-represented communities.
With the support of Lambeth Council, London-based Connected Kerb plans to install 22 on-street chargers across 11 council estates for drivers who do not have access to off-street parking.
It is hoped the project will support lower-income communities to potentially make the switch to electric vehicles, such as those living in urban centres, council estates and high-rised flats - areas that are often disproportionately exposed to the highest level of toxic emissions and poor air quality.
“People often think electric vehicles are the preserve of a fortunate few with detached houses and driveways, but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb. “With running costs much lower than petrol and diesel cars, all communities, regardless of where they live, their social background, or whether they have a driveway or not, have lots to gain.
“Unfortunately, some communities are being failed by a classic chicken and egg scenario. Without high EV adoption, charge point operators won’t build public charging, and without reliable charging, why would anyone go electric?”
Road transport is the biggest cause of air pollution in Lambeth, contributing to more than 50% of its emissions, and Lambeth Council was the first London-based authority to declare a climate emergency.
All 22 chargers will provide a 7kW charging rate and will be installed within a five-minute walk of all households that do not have access to off-street parking. Their installation forms a part of Lambeth Council’s target to implement more than 200 charging points by 2022.
Lambeth Council is also encouraging further measures to curb emissions from roads, including raising awareness of air pollution, and promoting cycling and increased public transport use.
Connected Kerb revealed plans to install chargers in remote areas of Kent earlier this year and told Autocar it is "working with councils across the country to roll out charging in similar projects."
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London-based company to bring EV chargers to underserved areas
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What I really suspect is this Lambeth want to install chargers but they want to put them somewhere out of the way so they will hand pick a few estates (those promotional picures do not look like any estate in lambeth that i've ever seen) and then advertise that you can come to Lambeth and you can get off street charging and likely free parking when you get the lambeth council "app". I doubt whether Lambeth cares about the climate that much or whether it's just a cynical way to try to "raise the profile" of the borough of Lambeth and make some loot as they have been doing ever since they got the green light to put up parking charges by 333% in one year and are hell bent on fining people through the use of LTN secretly introduced when we were in the 1st lockdown with no consultation about it in order to grab back the lost revenue they enjoyed from parking fines.
Is this a joke? 2 slow speed chargers per estate, a 5 minute walk from home, so far enough away that you wouldnt know if it was being used before you set off. And then you get to leave your car out of sight for the local kids to do with, what they please while you leave it several hours to charge at 7kw
This wont end well.
Is this really newsworthy? Surely this is the bare minimum local authorities should be doing.