Somerset EV Charging Strategy has set out a detailed plan to dramatically expand electric-vehicle (EV) charging across the county, pairing fresh government funding with a long-term delivery contract intended to reach both towns and more remote rural communities.
The program is designed to remove one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption—reliable access to overnight and convenient public charging—while keeping the scheme financially sustainable for local taxpayers over the long run.
At the heart of the plan is a £3.783 million allocation from the UK government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) fund. Somerset says the money will be used to roll out a minimum of 1,606 low-power (up to 7 kW) sockets—the kind of charge points best suited to longer dwell times, such as overnight charging for residents without driveways.
The council will also require the winning operator to fully fund up to 20 rapid (50 kW+) chargers, adding faster options for drivers who need a top-up in minutes rather than hours. Importantly, Somerset has committed that at least 25% of all new charge points go into lower-demand, harder-to-serve areas, so rural communities are not left behind.
Why target “slow” overnight chargers? Somerset estimates that about 27% of properties lack off-street parking, so a large share of households cannot charge at home. For them, a dependable local network of curbside and car-park charge points is the difference between considering an EV or sticking with petrol and diesel. That reality is baked into the LEVI fund’s design, which focuses on places with lower levels of off-street parking and where public charging can unlock the switch to electric.
Delivery will be through a 17-year concession contract with a charge point operator (CPO). Under this model, the operator installs, runs, and maintains the network at its own risk while paying the council an annual fee to cover administrative costs.
Somerset’s Key Decision report confirms the LEVI capital grant will be blended with substantial third-party investment—at least 60% of the total cost—by the operator, meaning no council match funding is needed. The same report underscores that the operator will fund the rapid chargers in full and deploy them early to strengthen the commercial base of the network.
Procurement documents on the UK GOV give a sense of the scale and the practicalities. The contract—tendered under the Concession Contracts Regulations—runs from October 2025 to September 2042, reflecting the industry view that operators need a long run-time to amortise hardware and grid-connection costs.
Notably, Somerset’s tender details highlight a recent change by the local distribution network operator (National Grid Electricity Distribution) that simplifies connections to existing lamp-column cables for multiple small, low-voltage connections up to 5.75 kVA. That unlocks more “lamppost” or bollard charging, particularly useful on residential streets, and reduces street works and disruption.
The council also plans to invite public suggestions for charge-point locations through its website, signaling a community-led approach to siting. That matters because the “right” spot can vary: a terrace street with overnight parking needs different hardware and bay design than a market-town car park that serves shoppers by day and residents by night. By crowdsourcing ideas, Somerset can prioritise places where chargers will be well-used and well-loved.
Equity and accessibility have been woven into the specification. Somerset’s decision paper references PAS 1899, the UK design guidance for accessible public EV charging, and includes an Equality Impact Assessment that considers everything from kerb heights and cable weights to bay spacing and signage. The aim is to make the infrastructure usable by as many people as possible—including drivers with mobility impairments and parents with prams—without compromising safety for other road users.
This new phase builds on a multi-year push. The county adopted a joint Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy in late 2020, bringing district councils and the then county council around a common framework. By September 2023, the council reported 305 publicly accessible charge points, up 40.5% from 217 the year before, and was already progressing its LEVI bid. Those milestones give context: Somerset is not starting from scratch; it is scaling from a base network that has already expanded quickly.
National policy is pulling in the same direction. The LEVI programme itself reflects the government’s view that public-sector support should target “need and progress”, with allocations weighted toward areas that have fewer charge points per 100,000 people, higher rurality, and more vehicles without off-street parking. Somerset’s funding is a direct outcome of that methodology. In short, the county’s geography and housing stock—villages, hamlets, older terraces, and a significant rural population—make it exactly the kind of place LEVI was designed to help.
What will residents see on the ground? Expect a predominantly AC (up to 7 kW) network distributed across on-street bays and council car parks, with rapid hubs sprinkled in to support visitors, taxis, trades, and anyone who can’t wait for a slower top-up.
The lamppost and “satellite” bollard solutions should mean smaller footprints and fewer deep excavations, especially where existing low-voltage cable networks can be used. Meanwhile, the concession approach gives a single operator responsibility for maintenance, uptime, pricing transparency, and customer support, enabling performance standards that are hard to enforce in a patchwork of one-off installs.
Critically, this scheme is structured to be financially sustainable. Because the CPO carries most of the capital and operational risk and pays the council an annual fee, Somerset avoids a long tail of asset upkeep costs. The council’s report makes the point explicitly: there is no capital outlay for the authority, capability funding covers near-term project staffing, and operator payments help offset ongoing revenue costs. In a tight fiscal environment, that makes the difference between a plan that is aspirational and one that is deliverable at the county scale.
There will still be challenges. Grid connections for rapid chargers can be slow and complex, and demand patterns will shift as EV uptake accelerates. Siting must balance charging access with streetscape pressures—loading bays, blue-badge parking, cycle lanes, and pedestrian safety. Somerset’s commitment to public engagement and to following accessibility guidance is therefore not a box-ticking exercise; it’s operationally necessary to get high-quality, high-utilisation assets into the right places.
Nevertheless, the direction of travel is clear. With £3.78 million in LEVI funding, a 17-year delivery partnership, a floor of 1,606 new sockets, and an explicit rural allocation, Somerset is moving from pilot projects to a systematic county-wide network. If executed well, the programme will make EV ownership practical for thousands more households—especially those without driveways—while normalising public charging as just another everyday utility in car parks and on residential streets. That is how you turn early adoption into mass adoption.