Cork City Council to ramp up EV charging deployment across city

CORK City Council has set its sights on ramping up the provision of electric vehicle (EV) charging points across the city, with a plan expected to go to public consultation shortly.

Councillors this week received a presentation on the draft electric vehicles charging strategy for the city.

It’s understood the strategy aims to provide normal EV chargers within two minutes’ walk from every home without off-street charging and fast chargers within 5-10 minutes’ walk from every home without off-street charging.

Councillors were told that the immediate plan would be to have 44 normal charging locations and 26 fast charging locations in place by 2025.

Each location will have the capacity to charge a number of cars simultaneously.

By 2030, the aim will be to have 200 normal charging and 39 fast charging locations across the city, with 550–700 individual charging points.

The charging units will be privately-run on a tender-basis and it is planned that there will be interoperability between different operators. The plan will require both private and public investment.

The public consultation is expected to include indicative maps of charging locations for the first phase up to 2025 and the second phase up to 2030.

“There’s going to be a huge appetite to see the locations being considered,” Green Party councillor Oliver Moran told The Echo.

“It’s something residents have been demanding for a long time, particularly those close to the city centre, where own-home charging is not an option.

“The locations are going to be indicative at first. After the strategy is adopted, there will need to be individual site surveys to confirm each site and its exact location.

“However, the strategy will point to areas that are going to be prioritised within a walking-distance radius. That’s going to really ‘bring it home’ for people and give confidence to anyone considering an electric car about the roadmap ahead.”

However, Mr Moran said that continued efforts to improve public transport and active travel is needed in tandem with the EV strategy.

“They both fit under the umbrella of climate action, but in terms of quality-of-life we’ll still be running to standstill if we don’t change to prioritise other transport options across the city,” he said.