A report has been presented to Bridgend Council’s Cabinet outlining the council’s new strategy for electric vehicle (EV) charging (pdf).
The sale of new electric and diesel vehicles is set to continue until 2035 (previously 2030).
In 2024, Bridgend was one of seven local authorities given a Welsh Government grant to develop a local EV charging strategy with Transport for Wales.
There are now just under 3,000 electric vehicles registered in Bridgend County.
Just to underline how quickly that’s grown, in 2023, a Cardiff City Region report suggested there were only 9,500 low-emission vehicles across all 10 authorities within the city region in 2022. However, this is still only about 2% of all vehicles registered in the county.
108 EV chargers have now been installed at 30 sites in the county. 12 of these have been installed by BCBC as owner-operators, 52 chargers have been installed in collaboration with the Cardiff City Region, while 44 have been installed independently by private operators (i.e. in supermarket car parks).
The draft strategy includes conclusions and recommendations such as (pdf):
- The council projects that a majority of vehicles registered in the county will be electric sometime around 2036-37.
- In order to meet expected local demand, an extra 224 public EV charging points will be needed by 2030 and 872 by 2050.
- BCBC are keeping an open mind on the type of chargers to deploy and will consider trialling different methods. Some of the options include lamppost charging, cable gullies (for on-street charging from a home charging point), pop-up street charging and wireless charging.
- The highest demand for fast/slow public charging by 2030 is expected to be in the southern half of the county (Bridgend, Porthcawl, Sarn/Valleys Gateway and Pencoed). Rapid charging demand is expected to be driven in the Bridgend urban area, particularly Bridgend Industrial Estate, Princess of Wales Hospital and M4 junctions.
The preferred funding/delivery option is land lease, where a Charge Point Operator leases land for charging points from the council.
Other delivery options include BCBC acting as owner-operator directly (as they already do for 12 charging points), joint ventures with other councils or companies, a concession-based model, or charging points being managed directly by Transport for Wales.
Subject to Cabinet approval, the draft EV strategy will be put out for public consultation shortly.
