Newport City Council to roll out streetlight charging

New electric vehicle (EV) charging points will be installed across Newport City Council through adding them to existing streetlights. These chargepoints will be delivered on all streets where houses have no access to off-street parking.

The chargepoints will be installed by Urban Fox, and will be the first chargepoints to be installed in streetlights. This style of EV charging is ideal for residential streets, which allows for the expansion of Newport’s charging network without taking up lots of space on the street.

This will take the number of charging points up to 120, with some streets having one charging point, while others will have multiple. Newport City Council have published a full list of the streets where these points will be installed.

Alongside the streetlight chargers, another partnership with Zest will see a number of conventional charging points delivered across Newport.

The council is also trialling charging gullies, another potential solution for EV drivers with no access to off-street charging, which will allow drivers to safely run a charging cable safely from their house to their vehicle without causing a hazard on the pavement.

Councillor Yvonne Forsey, cabinet member for climate change, said: “We are continuing to look for innovative ways to expand the coverage of our charging network.

“These new chargers are perfect for streets where there is limited pavement space to install a more traditional charging unit.

“We’ve already been shown to be providing the best coverage in Wales for houses with no access to off-street parking, and these installations will only improve that level of coverage.”