Electric vehicle chargepoints appear in Worthing: Everything you need to know

Government funding of up to £1.8million was awarded to the West Sussex Chargepoint Network, which is providing electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints for residents in areas which have no off-street parking.

The award is to part-fund up to 450 on-street charge-points and 100 in public car parks. The remaining installation costs will be covered by EV chargepoint company Connected Kerb – one of the UK’s leading providers of EV charging infrastructure solutions.

Worthing has been chosen as part of the phase one roll-out of chargepoints in the county.

A spokesperson for West Sussex County Council said on Tuesday (March 28): “Electric vehicle chargepoints are coming to Victoria Road, Worthing

“Victoria Road has a two-hour parking limit for spaces but this excludes the electric vehicle charging bays where there is no time limit for the re-charging bays.

"The spaces are reserved for electric vehicles to recharge only. Electric vehicles will be able to park in the bays until they are fully charged.”

The project is fully funded by Connected Kerb, ‘meaning zero cost to the councils’.

The county council said people are expected to move their vehicles once they are fully charged to ‘ensure other drivers can access the charge-points’. A parking permit is ‘not required’.

The spokesperson added: “West Sussex County Council is working hard to deliver on our concerns for the environment and the installation of charge-points is part of improving the air quality in the county and the environment underpins all of our priorities contained within our Council Plan which was recently updated.’

West Sussex County Council, Adur and Worthing Councils, Arun District Council, Crawley Borough Council, Horsham District Council and Mid Sussex District Council have signed a contract with Connected Kerb to install and maintain thousands of new chargepoints across the county. Chichester District Council has recently joined the initiative.

In November, the county council said the new wave of installations will ‘provide a significant boost’ to the ‘growing West Sussex Chargepoint Network’.

Joy Dennis, cabinet member for highways and transport, said the extra funding award by the Department for Transport was ‘excellent news’ and a ‘further boost’ to what is ‘already the UK’s largest rollout of electric vehicle chargepoints by a local authority’.

He added: “We’re working with our district and borough council partners to make even more chargepoints available across the county to encourage people to consider making the switch to electric vehicles."

Deborah Urquhart, cabinet member for environment and climate change, said electric vehicles allow travel without exhaust emissions and the associated negative impact on local air quality.

"Where coupled with renewable energy sources, they also help to decarbonise transport,” she added. “This dovetails perfectly with our Council Plan, which is underpinned by a cross-cutting theme of tackling climate change.”

Similar proposals for a street in Littlehampton were called off after a complaints from residents. Click here to read more.

See also: Serious Worthing incident: Everything we know so far after man 'found in the street with stab wounds'