Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy for Bedford Borough 2024 - 2027

Current EV charging provision in Bedford

Bedford's current EV chargepoint provision is summarised in Table 2.

Table 2: Summary of public chargepoints in Bedford

Council provision accounts for two thirds of the total, and is concentrated in the main urban area of Bedford and Kempston (Map 1).

Map 1: Council chargepoints as of November 2023, showing areas within a 400m radius (approx. five minutes' walk) of each site.

Our proposals

This strategy aims to ensure there is enough public charging in Bedford to enable people to switch to an EV, and to charge the estimated 12 to 17% of cars that will be EVs by 2027.

This will not be the final total of public chargepoints in Bedford: we fully expect that more will be installed beyond the end of this strategy period. But it is too soon to predict with confidence how many will be needed, where, and of what sort, further in the future.

For this phase of provision, we have identified several types of priority area to serve with new chargepoints:

• Local centres, where clusters of shops serve large surrounding residential areas, as designated in Local Plan 2030
• Urban areas with on-street parking that are not currently served by chargepoints
• Villages likely to see demand for chargepoints grow during the strategy period (13 suggested by the EV:Ready forecasting tool, taking account of population, housing stock and socio-economic factors).

We will also look at options for replacing life-expired chargepoints in some car parks, and expanding provision on some sites.

In the main urban area, the possible pattern of provision is shown in Map 2. The new areas are proposed, not final.

The areas we propose to cover are shown approximately: the final site of each new set of chargepoints will be decided in consultation with local residents, and also take account of practicalities such as how easy it will be to connect them to the electricity grid, and the layout of roads and pavements.

Map 2: existing (purple) and proposed new (orange) areas for chargepoints in the urban area of Bedford and Kempston, showing areas with a 400m radius (approx. five minutes' walk).

The villages we have identified as proposed sites for chargepoints, either because they are a designated local centre or because EV forecasting tools suggest there is likely to be demand in them, are listed in Box 1.

Box 1: Villages identified as proposed sites for chargepoints

Our proposed new locations are show in full in Map 3.

The number of sites we can add, and number of chargepoints at each site, will depend on how far we can make our funding go: we believe we have enough funding to serve all the proposed areas, but will not be able to confirm this until we have detailed costings for each site. Our proposed locations, as shown on Maps 2 and 3 and listed in Box 1, are therefore only proposals. While they indicate the level of new provision we want to install, we can't at this stage guarantee that all proposed locations will get chargepoints.

We will use a site selection matrix, to prioritise sites based on residents' views about where chargepoints are needed, and the practical ease of installing chargepoints on a given site, including cost considerations. Figure 4 shows this basic matrix: the sites that are most strongly desired by residents and most feasible for installation will be prioritised most highly (quadrant 1), followed by desirable but less feasible sites (quadrant 4), then feasible but less desirable sites (quadrant 2).

Figure 4: Site selection matrix

Question about new chargepoint locations

Map 3: Existing (purple) and proposed new (orange) chargepoint sites across Bedford Borough, showing areas within a 400m radius (approx. five minutes' walk).

Vision and outcomes

We have defined the results we want to see from this strategy as an overall vision, and four more specific outcomes.

Our vision is that access to charging will not be a barrier to residents of Bedford Borough who switch to using electric vehicles.

The outcomes are:

• Every household in the Borough will have access to workable EV charging options
• Residents' decisions about EV use will be informed by their knowledge and awareness of the available charging provision and options
• All new public chargepoint provision during the strategy period will be guided by the needs and views of residents, users and businesses
• The benefit of public funding for new chargepoint provision will be maximised by leveraging additional private funding.

Question about our proposed vision and outcomes