Decision details

This decision achieves the following key outcomes:

-          OCC will receive the necessary grant funding contribution from OxCity to be able to pay its chosen supplier (Connected Kerb) to deliver an additional 140 new GULO-funded chargers within its wider LEVI contract

-          The Department for Transport grant funded GULO will successfully be completed – meeting OxCity’s obligations to the funders at the Department of Transport and providing an additional 140 public EV charging sockets in Oxford

-          The existing estate of GULO P1 chargers will be operated by Connected Kerb under the OCC contract and will continue to provide a valuable service for residents

The responsibility for on-street public charging will sit with OCC which is clearer, more appropriate and easier to manage contractually than the prior temporary arrangements

In 2013, OxCity were granted special permission to be able to install, own and operate public EV chargers on the public Highway in order to deliver what was at the time an innovative trial of this type of EV charging technology as part of the Go Ultra Low Oxford project (GULO).

This was always intended to be a short-term practical arrangement to enable the OxCity-led project to go ahead; under normal circumstances OCC would not want assets to be installed and operated on the highway by third parties with whom OCC had no direct contractual relationship.

By 2015, around 51 chargepoint sockets had been delivered under the GULO project part 1 (GULO P1) but by 2022 the delivery of remainder of the scheme (GULO P2) had not been completed by OxCity.  Around the same time in 2022 the Department for Transport announced that OCC – as Highways Authority and strategic transport lead for Oxfordshire - would be receiving Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) grant funding and be expected to lead on the strategic planning and practical delivery of this large-scale public EV charging programme across the County.

It was agreed between OCC and OxCity at this point that no further public EV infrastructure would be installed on the Highway by OxCity, and that this would instead be delivered by OCC under their own chargepoint operator contracts, as was always in the intention in the long-term.

As a result of this decision around changing responsibilities, it was decided that:

-          a) OCC – via their chosen chargepoint operator - would adopt and be responsible for the existing on-street infrastructure that had been delivery by OxCity in the GULO P1 project

-          B) OxCity would transfer the remaining £402,000 of unspent GULO funding to OCC along with the responsibility for delivering the remaining 140 on-street EV charging sockets required to complete the GULO P2 project (to which Ox City insist on continuing to be responsible for to the funders at the Department of Transport).

-          c) In order to repay Ox City for their investment to date, OCC would pass to Ox City up to £451,000 from the income generated by the whole GULO charging estate over the next 15 years

A legally-binding GULO agreement has been drawn up to reflect the above responsibilities and financial and practical arrangements relating to the above decision.

The reasons for this decision are to allow the most effective delivery and management of public EV charging estate on the Highway in both the short and long term.

The alternative option would have been to allow OxCity to continue to own and operate public EV charging infrastructure on the Highway and to continue to deliver the remaining 140 GULO P2 chargers on the Highway under the previous agreement.

This would have made the estate difficult to manage and would have led to further delays in the new infrastructure being delivered, and in the existing infrastructure being updated and replaced.  It would also lead to continued uncertainly from public perspective about where the responsibility for EV infrastructure on the Highway sits between OCC and OxCity.