Issue details

Purpose of Report: In the context of York being a One Planet City, the Council engaged with the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the Go Ultra Low funding programme in order to further our ambitions in terms of putting in place the infrastructure, in terms of rapid charging points or “Hyper hubs” in strategic locations across the City, to accelerate the change in culture and adoption of Electric Vehicles (EV). In 2016 the Council were successful in the bidding process and were awarded the funding. In the Autumn of 2017 we had the opportunity to bid for additional ERDF funding to add an innovative layer to the project. This was the addition of a Solar canopy and battery storage. This would support the implementation of Hyper hubs for EVs at Monks Cross Park and Ride, Poppleton Bar Park and ride and York Hospital (this element is receiving funding support from York Hospital). The proposal at the Park and Ride sites identified above is unique because rather than capture solar energy to push to the grid (as in other projects around the country) the energy would be captured, stored in the batteries and the energy in the batteries would be used by the rapid charging points.

In December 2018 we were notified by Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government that our ERDF bid was successful pending putting the legal agreements in place. The purpose of this report is to update on the detail, seek approval for creating a budget to accept the additional funding and to seek approval to proceed with the planning and procurement processes in order to deliver the scheme.

The report will ask the Executive to:
- Agree to undertake work in line with the report
- Recommend to council approval of the budget for the Hyper hubs project
- Note the conditions that come with the grant
- Approve the initiation of the consultation process on design in May
- Approve the initiation of the planning process after the consultation process
- Approve the commencement of the procurement process
- Note that a report will be brought back later in the year for a decision on the contract award

It has not been possible to give 28 clear days’ notice of the intention to make this Key Decision. The reasons why compliance is impracticable in this matter is in order to allow for the initiation of consultation and planning procedures prior to May 2019, in line with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) timeframe.