In this article I highlighted that the Railway Place location, that had previously been used for the Next Bike hire, was to be converted to on-street EV charging which, in my opinion, was completely wrong use of a space so close to the train station. I followed up the article for further clarification and got this response:
Dear Adam
Your email to Cllr Guy, Cllr Warren and Cllr McCabe dated 6/6/22 has been passed to me for reply.
Unfortunately, the press release relating to the introduction of new EV charging points (issued on 6/6/22) omitted to mention that both rapid charging bays at Railway Place will be for taxis only and not private vehicles. Two further rapid charging bays in Charlotte Street car park will be allocated to private hire vehicles. The Revive network allows the use of these chargers to be restricted to registered taxi/private hire drivers only, and traffic regulation orders (TROs) will enable the restricted use of these parking bays to be enforced. The existing TROs and signs will be updated to reflect these parking restrictions.
I trust that you will find this information useful.
Regards
Nick
Nick Helps
Active Travel Manager
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Great to see the two charging points this will provide are going to be exclusive for Taxi use which makes a lot of sense!
eHUBS on every street corner?
What is still missing from the mix of solutions are eHUBS. This is something that West of England CA need to deliver on. If you look at Transport For Greater Manchester’s eHUBS you can see the direction we need WECA to take and that requires regional partnerships with eCar/eBike share clubs. Without those regional partnerships in place there will be enormous pressure on BaNES to deliver on-street residential EV charging without provision of shared mobility services (eCar/eVan/eScooter/eBike/eCargobikes).
Guess that’s another letter to Dan Norris in the making but this needs urgently sorting one way or another.
walkridebath.org.uk 
When you replied to my comment a couple of weeks ago, I nearly said that I bet it’s for taxis but I didn’t know if that was the case. I’m glad you got it clarified though.
A lot of EV locations are also down to practical things like whether you can get a fast enough current there. In Bath, there are all all the listed buildings (and so on) to think of too.
There are also lots of ways that you can manage EV sites that don’t necessarily = more traffic at least in the same way as usual traffic.. A lot of fast chargers (50kw and above) are designed for short term charging and will have stricter timing for parking. It’ll make sense to have lots of slower chargers for day visitors at park and ride site.
The bigger point still here is that it’s good that Bath are putting EV points *as well* as everything else they can do to reduce reliance on cars etc. It’s not necssarily one vs the other.
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