Episode 174: Liz Allan and Peter Higgins - Cross-Pavement Solutions Done Properly

Episode 174: Liz Allan and Peter Higgins - Cross-Pavement Solutions Done Properly.
Liz Allan speaks to Peter Higgins, EV Project Officer at Stoke on Trent City Council, to explore one of the most important and often misunderstood challenges in the EV transition: how to support residents who cannot charge at home.

Peter shares how Stoke-on-Trent is tackling the equity gap faced by households without off-street parking, using cross-pavement charging solutions to enable safe, affordable home charging for terraced streets. Drawing on his background in environmental management and years within local government, Peter explains how his team has navigated accessibility concerns, electrical regulations, planning complexities, and internal governance to deliver a scalable and future-proof solution.

The conversation goes deep into the practical realities local authorities face, from health and safety and electrical separation rules, through to ownership models, highway adoption, and why councils often feel risk-averse. Peter also offers refreshingly honest advice to other authorities: do not reinvent the wheel. Learn from those already doing the work.

Quote of the Episode:
“If someone’s already done the hard work, steal their homework. We’re all trying to solve the same problem.” Peter Higgins.

Peter Higgins Bio:
Peter Higgins has over a decade of experience in local government and a degree in Environmental Management and Technology. He brings a practical, evidence-led approach to decarbonisation and transport equity, and is particularly known for his work on cross-pavement charging and for openly sharing lessons learned with other councils across the UK.

Peter Higgins Links:
Website: https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20006/housing_and_neighbourhoods/792/cross_pavement_gully_scheme
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-higgins-stoke?

Transcript

Liz Allan:
Hi, everybody, and welcome back to Electric Evolution. This week, I have Peter Higgins with me, and he is one of the EV project officers at Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Peter, thank you ever so much for joining me. It's. It's just lovely to talk to you on here. And we've spoken quite a lot, haven't we?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for having me. Yes.

Liz Allan:
And we actually met face-to-face a few weeks ago at a Cenex event in Newport. I wasn't expecting you to be there, and I don't think you were either. Were you? But that was. That was an excellent event and lots of. Lots of local authorities there.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, it was a great event.

Liz Allan:
But we're going to be talking today about some of the work that you've been doing in Stoke and the consortium that you're working with the local authorities. But let's start, as I usually do, with a little bit of your background. Let's talk about you some. So, before you became EV project Officer, what did you do?

Peter Higgins:
So before this role, I've been with Stoke Council for 15 years.

Liz Allan:
Long time.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, primarily in adult social care as a responder. So, it's sort of first aid for adult social care. But within that role, I kind of got attached to other projects, other initiatives, some official, some unofficial. It was just me sticking my oar in. Yeah, yeah. Putting myself in. And that's. But then, whilst I was in that job, I decided that it's not really the career I wanted to be in, so I did a degree with the Open University, distance learning in environmental management and technology, which, yeah, led me to the vision of getting a role like this.

Peter Higgins:
And then the job came up with Stoke Council, still applied, and, yeah, that's. That's where I am now.

Liz Allan:
That's fantastic. I am going to mention, and I said to you, I'd mention this, there is another job that you've had that is. You said to me, as your. Is your hobby being a theatre technician for the Ambassador Theatre Group? Come on, we've got. We've got it. You've got to fill us in a little bit about what that's all about.

Peter Higgins:
Well, I have been accused of having theatre kid energy. I don't know what that means, but.

Liz Allan:
You'Re a bit of a lovey darling. Is that what it is?

Peter Higgins:
Possibly, yeah. So, yeah, I've been a. Yeah, it's always been a bit of a hobby, bit of a passion, but it's. Luckily, it's a hobby that I get paid for just from doing a bit of casual work backstage for the local theatres.

Liz Allan:
So go on. What, what. I mean, we're going to talk about your main role, but what does this, what do you do for this then?

Peter Higgins:
Primarily for them? It's. So when we're a receiving house, which is the technical term in theatre, it's when shows go on tour. Yeah, a receiving house just receives the show, so it doesn't put on the show.

Liz Allan:
Right.

Peter Higgins:
So stuff like the RSC down in Stratford would be a production house because they put on the show. They. Yeah, they design the show, they make the show, they put on the show. We're a receiving house, so we just receive shows. So it'd be putting the shows in so they all arrive on the back of many trailers, and then it's. So it's building the set, putting up the lights and the sound and then at the end of the run, taking it all back out again and putting it back into trailers.

Liz Allan:
So you're kind of involved in all of that?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah. So I don't do any show work for him because I've got a full-time job. But yeah, just as, yeah, just as a bit of casual work now and again I'll. I'll put a theatre set into a building and then a week after, take it all out.

Liz Allan:
It's all because it was funny. Just before we were recording, I was literally looking through LinkedIn, and I was kind of going, my God, I didn't know you did that. I love to hear, I love to hear, you know, the things that people kind of do aside from their, their regular job, you know, I mean, nobody, unless they know me really well, knows that I've just got my Reiki 2 qualification. Do you know what I mean? So it's one of those, it's one of those things that people just don't, don't find out, you know. So that's brilliant. I love that.

Peter Higgins:
It's always nice to have a side hustle as well.

Liz Allan:
Well, yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, not yet, but. So let's talk now about the role that you're in at Stoke, the consortium that you've been kind of working with, and sort of the type of work that you've been doing as an EV project officer, because you're specialising now, aren't you? But was. We weren't originally, maybe.

Peter Higgins:
No, no. So it was. I was brought in at the start. Well, not the start of the Levi. So in Stoke, we're part of two Levi projects. We've got the Levi pilot and then the main Levi funding that's coming through as well. So it's all consortium-based, so we're grouped together with other local councils. So I was brought in sort of halfway through the LEVI pilot.

Peter Higgins:
So the charging point operator had already been appointed.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
And we were just commencing the delivery phase, the planning and delivery phase of the pilot.

Liz Allan:
Okay.

Peter Higgins:
And then we've also got the, the main, the main tranche of the funding coming through as well, which will be a completely different cp. Well, maybe a completely different cpo, because it's another tender process and that's ongoing at the moment. So there's very little I can say about that. Legally.

Liz Allan:
I wasn't going to ask you, I'm not going to ask you those questions.

Peter Higgins:
But then, part of the original plan for the main tranche was to take 10% of our total funding to put into cross pavement. And that's where.

Liz Allan:
And that's your specialism.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. And then, yeah, I was sort of interested in that. I bit the proverbial bait on that, and I've ended up.

Liz Allan:
People, people who kind of already know, you know, your specialism and that. And you've done, you've done a lot of work on the. On the cross pavement solution side, haven't you? Because. And we were talking before we started recording, because I think it's really important to, to maybe start off by addressing the, the kind of. The questions that you started off with, because there are still a number of local authorities who find the idea of installing channels not the right, not necessarily the right thing to do. I wasn't thinking the right thing to do in that. I was thinking more of a. From a health and safety angle.

Liz Allan:
But you've covered all of this, haven't you? Just give us a little bit of a background about what you've done in the run-up to deciding, you know, about how many cross-pavement solutions were going in.

Peter Higgins:
So the full story is we identified early on that we needed a system that addresses the current inequity between EV ownership for people who have got drives and can charge at home and people who haven't. That was the big driving decision behind all of it.

Liz Allan:
And is there a lot of that? Is there a lot of kind of driverless houses in, you know, in Stoke?

Peter Higgins:
Massively, yeah. Depending on which survey or statistics you look at, it's somewhere between 30 and 57%. 57%, yeah. Those who don't have access to off-street parking.

Liz Allan:
Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. I mean, I live in a terraced house myself, so that's, it's, it's, you know, quite personal for me as well. I know the issue, and I know how much of a barrier it is to EV ownership because a lot of people, if they can't, if they've got no means of charging at home, they won't get an EV. And we're working massively hard to try and push, you know, EVs to help climate change, but also help air quality.

Liz Allan:
Yes.

Peter Higgins:
People always forget that the focus is so high on CO2 emissions, and people forget about the health they think about.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, they forget, they forget about what they're breathing in when they're, you know, when they're walking past a pet.

Peter Higgins:
I think one of my favourite stats, which is probably a few years old now, back when I was doing my degree, was that 40,000 people in the UK have early deaths attributed to air pollution every year.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
So, and you know, that costs NHS and social services billions, absolute billions. So it's, it's a massive thing that needs to be addressed. And if giving people gullies to help ease ownership for the, you know, big chunk of people in the country, because I think nationally it's 25 people.

Liz Allan:
But we've got those, those pockets, like you're saying, of numbers where the housing stock is terraced and there's no drives like you say, and all that kind of stuff. Seeker. We can't really use the whole of the UK for that stat, can we? We've got to look at those individual pockets of, you know, of, of where the housing stock is specifically kind of driver. Driverless. Not driverless, driverless.

Peter Higgins:
You know, and in, in areas like Stoke, the, the lack of off street parking is so closely tied to household income that it does sort of then start to get a little bit political almost where like not being able to charge your car at home almost becomes a bit of a poverty tax.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, it's awful, isn't it? Yeah, just think, you know, we've, like I say, I, I, I, I think what you're doing. We'll go into this in more detail, is, is, is brilliant and. I really, really hope that people who are watching and listening, if, you know, local authorities where they're not putting gullies in yet, or not putting cross pavement solutions in yet, please go talk to them and get them to talk to Pete, because of the stuff that you've done. And let's talk, let's talk about that now. Yeah, if we can, you know, it's. It's brilliant, the stuff you've done. So. So, from that decision, right, you kind of decided on this 10, what were the first things that you had to think of when you were looking at it? So you're talking about, you've got your 57 of, you know, of housing stock that's not got driveways, you're looking at those, those issues.

Liz Allan:
And then you decided on. On the gullies. But yeah, didn't you say to me initially that you weren't? You weren't sure because you. If you don't know much about the gullies in the first place, you've got to look into them. So what were the first. What were the next steps for you then?

Peter Higgins:
So actually, before the gullies, we briefly looked at a cable cover. Cable covers as well. Mats.

Liz Allan:
Oh, right, okay.

Peter Higgins:
What do you mean?

Liz Allan:
Like the high vis ones. Okay.

Peter Higgins:
And there were some that were actually quite good, you know, quite shallow with a good chamfering of the edge to them. But we decided, well, I consulted with our social care occupational therapists, sorry, at Stoke. We sort of came to the same conclusion that one every 10 households probably wouldn't be a problem, but if there were 10 in a row for somebody in a wheelchair, it would then be somewhat of an obstacle. So it may have been a solution for now, but it won't be a solution for the future. And we needed something scalable and permanent.

Liz Allan:
Yes.

Peter Higgins:
That's when we started looking at gullies properly and, yeah, we. I basically looked at the market to see what was available, all the different solutions. Luckily,all of them are completely flush with the pavement. So that was a big plus from the accessibility point of view. And, yeah, there was. You could see that there were four solutions. They all effectively do the same thing. I, you know, get a cable from one side of the pavement to the other, but ina  very different method.

Peter Higgins:
Very different methods and means. So. And again, it was going back to the accessibility front. No one solution is inherently accessible because people's accessible needs differ so wildly.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
What might be easy for one person who has some sort of mobility or accessibility needs is going to be vastly different from somebody else. So the decision was to give the residents as much as possible the choice for the product that's going to suit their needs the most.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
And that was another big driving factor. Again, it goes back to that sort of equity. Everything sort of circles back all the time. Yeah. So, addressing them, there are, you know, you do think of some safety issues. The ODS gully system, initially, I was quite wary of because it's an open channel.

Liz Allan:
Okay. Yes, yeah. Because it's got a brush across the top of the channel, hasn't it?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah. But then when we went down to Oxfordshire to see some of them actually in the ground, it was the first time I've ever seen them. Well, probably not the first time I've seen them, but the first time I've noticed them. The old Victorian rain channels.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, they've got.

Peter Higgins:
I've probably seen them thousands of times before in different cities across the country, but. Yeah, you don't think about it, do you?

Liz Allan:
Haven't we? Yeah, yeah.

Peter Higgins:
Which is a testament, really, to how good that technology is because you never see it, you never notice it.

Liz Allan:
I've seen them myself when I've been through Oxford, and just like, oh, look, this.

Peter Higgins:
Oh, now. I noticed them all the time because I'm really sad.

Liz Allan:
Don't worry, we all get geeky. I get you.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. And there was. Yeah, so there was a gully about four feet away from a Victorian rain channel, and I just saw those two side by side and how similar they were. It was a proper light bulb moment, like. Oh, yeah, these are really not an issue at all because they're there, and something similar to these has been on the pavements, you know, thousands of them, for decades and decades, probably even longer if they're the Victorian ones. They're clearly not an issue because they're still there.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
And you know, councils are so risk-averse by nature, and we have to be.

Liz Allan:
I get you. But I was going to say. But you're. But. But you did your homework, didn't you? Because, like. So, so what. What were the things that you were worried about? Because there's. There are some issues or worries about the electrical impact on the street that's gonna have.

Liz Allan:
So if you've got terrorism, like you say, 10 houses on there, X number of, you know, kind of, if you're giving people the ability to charge their vehicles from home because it's cheaper, isn't it? Charging you.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah.

Liz Allan:
You know, charging from home, it makes it so much easier. And like you said about the equity piece, what are the worries about the electrical side of things that you've managed to get over or understand at least?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. The big one with the big stumbling block was the let electrical separation, saying that any earthed component of an electrical system has to be outside of simultaneous contact. Touch. Which is 2.5 meters.

Liz Allan:
Okay, what does that mean in English?

Peter Higgins:
It just means that if somebody was in the middle of two earthed components, so something that could potentially carry a charge.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
You wouldn't be able to touch both of them at the same time.

Liz Allan:
Right. Get you. I get you, unless you had Mr Tickle Arms.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah.

Liz Allan:
Arms or something. But you wouldn't want to do that anyway. Right? Okay. Okay. Okay.

Peter Higgins:
So the. Yeah. The distance it's set to is 2.5 meters.

Liz Allan:
Right.

Peter Higgins:
Which is outside of most people's.

Liz Allan:
Span for you to get to the point where you. Because, because you know, it has to go. So when you put in a channel in, it has to go for planning permission.

Peter Higgins:
Yes. Oh no, the channel doesn't. It's the charger that does.

Liz Allan:
Ah, that's it.

Peter Higgins:
Common misconception. 

Liz Allan:
So okay, so what are the steps that you have to? You had to go through with regard to making sure that all of these channels were fit for purpose? Cuz you've not got any in yet, have you? But you've got some news.

Peter Higgins:
You've got some going on next week. Touchwood. Next week will be the first ones going in under the supervision of the gully companies because we're doing the groundworks ourselves in Stoke.

Liz Allan:
Which I was gonna say. So let's come back. Let's come back to you.

Liz Allan:
You guys are doing it because we've. That needs, you know, that we need to kind of go over that one. But keep staying on that sort of thing, like the electrical side. Are there, are there other things other than the recognition of those regular. You know. So, is there anything in the regs, the electrical regs, any other things that you had to have a look at?

Peter Higgins:
So that's the biggie. So the issue is, it's how you don't get around that because that's the wrong terminology. But it's like how you adapt that to the real world. So the big one, the first one, was ensuring that if two properties share the same earth, then it's not different. So the 2.5 electrical separation thing only applies to differential earths. Yeah, I know. This is where it gets very.

Liz Allan:
Yeah. No flipping hook.

Peter Higgins:
So if two properties. So new builds, when they build new builds.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
They are all connected to the same earth source, the same substation.

Liz Allan:
Get you. I get you. Okay.

Peter Higgins:
So that's why you can have on new Build properties. A charger, which is regulated now.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
Charges on the two houses, even though the drives are close together. So those two cars on charge will be within the 2.5 meters. But that's allowed because the houses are on the same earth source.

Liz Allan:
Okay, okay.

Peter Higgins:
And the same with. Bizarrely, we allow this with. Or also with semi-detached houses that were built in the 50s and 60s.

Liz Allan:
That's ours. Well, we're not semi, but we're. Ours is a 50s, I think.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah. So there's no. Technically, there are electrical regulations that cover that, but there's no planning. It's still permitted development.

Liz Allan:
Oh. Do you know all of these different regulations that you guys have to think of as a. As a local authority. It gets. It makes it quite complicated. Do you think that's. That's why some local authorities aren't up for going through the whole gully?

Peter Higgins:
Short answer, yes. It's the planning permission required for the home charger, which is the big stumbling block. Because like I say, you know, you live in a semi. My mum and dad do. It's like the way I always envisaged. It was my mum and dad's property, the semi-detached, but they have driveways next to each other, so there is nothing legally stopping them. And their neighbour is getting a charger fitted, and their cars are within 2.5 meters of separation, but nobody. Nobody cares about that, either legally or elsewhere.

Peter Higgins:
Everybody accepts that that's just a done thing and that occurs. Even that, like new builds are different because we can categorically say that they are connected to.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
The same substation.

Liz Allan:
Yes.

Peter Higgins:
So that was my first avenue of looking into it. So if it's allowed over here in situation A, why is it such an issue for situation B, for me and for the residents of Stoke who live in terrace properties who might not be able to get it if their neighbour does? So. Luckily not luckily at all. I was on one of these senex courses, and they mentioned that you can get, if, you know, if you're an LA officer like me, you can get access to the National Grid at Isenstoke, so the DNO mapping systems. So I can now see if terraced properties are wired to the same earth source.

Liz Allan:
Oh, wow.

Peter Higgins:
Most of them should be like, realistically speaking, logically speaking, most. Terry's houses are built in a row at the same time. They're going to be earthed to the same point, but it's nice to check.

Liz Allan:
So you've had to do all of this, then, to actually get to the point, then, where you could go ahead. Yeah, with, with, with. With the channels. Did you have to have a consultation with the residents, kind of as well? You know, how did. How did. How did that go? Because I suppose my question really is how many people wanted the channels? Did people know about gullies?

Peter Higgins:
So even before I came into the role, we'd had a handful of inquiries from members of the public that just sat in an email box unanswered because we didn't have a solution for it yet. And then obviously, as I've been in post, a lot of this wasn't advertised; it was just organic inquiries like before. But there has been more and more and more come through with people who either have had an EV through work as a company car and want to charge it at home, or people who want to make the change and feel like they can't because they can't charge at home, or people who have. And have them being frustrated that it's costing them so much at public charge points and. Yeah, or they're having to rely entirely on workplace charges, which are great for 90% of the time, but then that 10% where, you know, they really want to charge at home, they can't. Those. Yeah. So it's just to circle back to the electrical separation as well.

Peter Higgins:
And again, this is all. All research that's been done, because there isn't really any evidence. The information out there. There was in fact, no, tell a lie. There was a guidance document on it, which stated open pen for protection, which I won't get into the technicalities of. And again, I'm not an electrician, so I've had to sit down and have conversations with Stokes, my main electrical engineer, to get them to explain a lot of this to me. So that basically removes any sort of live neutral fault, which would be an earthing fault. So even if there are two properties on different earth sources, or a property in a lamppost, because some lampposts are earth differently.

Peter Higgins:
Not in Stoke, because again, I've had that confirmed, and I can see it on the maps as well. I can see it on the mapping system that all our lampposts are earthed to the same level as the properties as well. Same substation. God, that's another consideration. So again, it's if. Yeah, so other councils, if they can get access to their own mapping systems, obviously, National Grid, I can guarantee they've got them. I'm aware that others do as well, but I don't know which ones because, quite frankly, it doesn't concern me. I don't need to remember all of it.

Liz Allan:
This is to get to this point. But you've got a lot of this written down anyway, haven't you?

Peter Higgins:
Yes. Yeah. And if anybody wants information, they can always. Yeah, I will answer any questions I have already. I've already spoken to various councils up and down the country.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, because you've done, you, you've done the hard work. So, actually, you can point people. It's always good if you've got somebody who can point other people in the right direction, and you're that.

Peter Higgins:
And I've borrowed information when I first started as well because there were other councils that were ahead of me, such as Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, which were already ahead of me in certain ways. So I've, you know, copied their homework, and now people can copy mine. It's.

Liz Allan:
But you've pulled it together, though, into some format that. Yeah, it's not, it's not on the Internet, is it? But you can contact, you can contact Peter and I will share your LinkedIn profile details in the show notes. So. So people can contact you.

Peter Higgins:
Let's work via email as well if you want to.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, okay. Well, my goodness, we'll see about that one. But what I was going to say was. Let's go back to what you were saying about your decision to, as a council or as a consortium, to install yourselves, you know, to install the gullies, you know, install the cross-channel cost channels yourselves.

Peter Higgins:
So the, the gullies is just the Stoke council thing. It's. It's. That's not consortium-related at all. That's you. Yeah, the main funding for it originally came from consortium funding from the Levi funding, but as a council we opted to take. Yeah, so anything gully-related is just a Stoke-on-Trent thing. And yeah, the other, the other consortium members can't be blamed or.

Liz Allan:
That's all right. I mean, you know what your housing stock is, you know what, you know what you're talking about, because you've done all that, like I say, all the hard work. So what happens with regard to the installation? Can you just kind of talk us through a little bit about? Because you said that you're going to be installing them, but initially it starts with the organisation that's providing the gully, isn't it?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, so the gully providers are literally just providers for us. That's their only involvement apart from the first couple of installs. They have said that they are going to send their own engineers up just to Let us know from their lessons learned how best to install their product. Which makes sense really. So they're just doing that as a one off. So it'll be a one off install. Just a real world instructional.

Liz Allan:
Other channels, width and depth. They. Are they mostly the same for. Across all of the. The channel providers.

Peter Higgins:
They're all different. Yeah, they've all got different widths but there's only four of them. And it will be just four different methods really for each one. That's. That's all. And the cost actually isn't that much difference as well because the biggest cost for Groundworks is actually getting a team out there. That's. That's the biggest cut actually making a cut in the pavement that big or three times as big.

Peter Higgins:
You're still using the circular saw for the same amount of time. You know, you still. The backfill might be a little bit different but again that's. That's pennies when we're talking about pounds. Like the main, the main cost is actually just getting the crew there in the first place and, and all the associated costs that go with it. Such as like the permits and.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, all of that kind of stuff.

Peter Higgins:
By doing it ourselves, we negate the need for the section 50.

Liz Allan:
So explain what section 50 is.

Peter Higgins:
Section 50 is basically just a license to dig up the highway. So in this yeah.

Liz Allan:
People like me and probably other people watching, listening, don't. Don't realise that in every case, you know what these, all of the things, all of the hoops you have to jump through to get these things done. So when it. That's why things may take a little bit of time to get sorted. You know, it's because you've got all of these, these things, these things to do, but you've got really. You've got. I would call it a process map, really. Do that, then I do that, then these things, and so on. Oh, you go off that way, you know.

Liz Allan:
So.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. Well, I do actually have a process map if.

Liz Allan:
Good on you. Yay. That's my improvement. Geeky head coming on. Oh, I love it. I love it.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. Yeah. So if, if we do everything as a, as an authority, it means we have complete ownership of that as well.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
We try to make it as similar to a drop curb as possible.

Peter Higgins:
All the conversations I've had with our highways team, all circles back to that. It's. It's just like a drop curb. So the resident may be paying for it. And in the future, the resident will be paying for it. Right now it's.

Peter Higgins:
It's funding, but the resident doesn't own. Own the piece of equipment. It's. It's adopted into the highway, much like a drop curb.

Peter Higgins:
Exactly, yeah. So the decision was to do everything ourselves, to keep everything as close to a drop curb.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, that was it. Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
So whilst the goalie might be the decision of the resident, and you know, in a post-funding environment, they will be paying for it.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
In the same way that they pay for a drop curb, it's going to be adopted into the highway in exactly the same way as drop curb will. So the council will own the asset in the pavement.

Liz Allan:
Okay, so what? Hang on. Even if the. Even if the resident pays for it, that will be your responsibility. Yours. But because I suppose they're paying for it when it. In future, they're paying for it because it's theirs. Their benefit.

Liz Allan:
But you're doing it. You've got to pay. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Okay. Okay.

Peter Higgins:
Again, exactly like your drop curve is.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, yeah, I suppose I've never had to have a drop curve put in, so I didn't. I didn't realise all of these different things. Blimey. But you're so you're looking at 300 installations, aren't you, across these four providers?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah.

Liz Allan:
So how did you decide on these locations? Obviously, as you said, you have, you had contact from a number of residents, didn't you? To kind of ask, ask about installs. But what about, what about the other places that you've. You've been, you're installing in? How did you decide?

Peter Higgins:
So it will be entirely customer-led, resident-led.

Liz Allan:
Okay.

Peter Higgins:
So yeah, we've got the, the natural organic inquiries that came in occasionally. We are releasing comms basically on our social media channels, the council social media channels to advertise it. Once we've got the first few in the ground, we'll then approach the local press to get things advertised that way. And I'm also working with some of the car sales places in Stokes, so to get their salesman, making them aware of what it offers. Because I'm, I approached one and the first, the first two questions they ask when somebody comes in looking for a new car is how many miles do you do? And have you got to drive to see if they are appropriate for an EV? Because they've got sales targets to sell EVs. So it's now a little bit of education now just to remove that question of do you have a drive? Because now it doesn't matter. Anybody can have an EV basically now. So that was a bit of an eye opener to see that that was such a massive question for the car sales places.

Peter Higgins:
You'd think that they just want to sell cars even if they weren't appropriate. But yeah, the fact that they were asking that question to potential customers and maybe even messing up with their own targets for the sake of, well, if you haven't got a driving EV, it's not you. Yeah, says a lot about how much of a stumbling block.

Liz Allan:
Some places don't, some dealerships don't even ask that question. I met an Uber driver. This is a few months ago now, and I might have talked about this before. We're at a charger in West London and basically the Uber driver, he said, I live in a flat and it, I don't know how many stories it was, but he was on like the third floor. He said, " You know, nobody asked me whether I had to drive or whether I'd be at a charge. So he's having, he was having to use public charging all the time, you know, and it was costing him an arm and a leg. And he was kind of saying, if I'd have known, I might have done something a bit different, which is a real shame because if they'd have just, you know, ask those questions. But I'm glad you're actually being, I'm glad you've been going and asking about, you know, talking to, talking to dealerships, because I think that it is, some of this is just about education, isn't it? And like you say, getting those comms out and talking to people about, about the potential of what gullies can give you.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, absolutely. And we're working with a motability as well because they're the biggest provider of lease, lease vehicles in the uk.

Liz Allan:
Yes.

Peter Higgins:
And again, I, we really want to help those people out because they're, they're the people, you know, with the most vulnerability, and you know, we can put all the public charging infrastructure in the world in place, and you know, have it a five-minute walk away. But that five-mile walk might not really be achievable for somebody with mobility issues. Yeah, you know, it might be. You know, I don't want to put everyone in the same, same basketball. It might not.

Liz Allan:
Financially, financially if people are kind of, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to be too general, you know, generalizing here, but you know, I've, I've interviewed a chap on here previously and, and you know, financially it's, it's, it's difficult, you know, a lot of the time when somebody, you know, I've got, I've got my friend's brother, he kind of works part time. You know, he's in, he's in a wheelchair. Yes. He's got a drive. So it's a bit different. But not everybody, not everybody does. And you can't, as you said, you can't, you. It's got to be equitable, this hasn't it? We've got to make, make, make sure that this is equitable and people, you know, all levels can charge and do it as cheaply as possible.

Liz Allan:
And yes, public charging is important, but it's only part of the overall number of different solutions. You can't say one size fits all.

Peter Higgins:
No, that's it. There's no silver bullet. There's never a silver bullet. Especially when you're replacing one established technology with another. There's very rarely a silver bullet. It's got to be an entire suite of options. And the same thing happened with the car when we were replacing horses.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, exactly.

Peter Higgins:
Somebody had a horse, and that horse could do everything for them. It could pull the cart, it could take them to places, it could plough the field for them. It could, you know, it was a multi-purpose tool, and then we replaced it with a car, and now somebody might need a car, they might need a van, they might need a tractor to do exactly the same jobs that one horse could do. It's the same, same. Now we're replacing the fuel cedation with a new technology, and there's no silver bullet, there's no direct replacement. It takes an entire suite of technologies in order to do that. And we can see that on, you know, a slight tangent because I'm a fan of a tangent. It's the same with renewable energy as well.

Liz Allan:
Everybody knows who's been watching and listening to this for a long time. I call it my spicy tangent. I'm great at doing a spicy tangent.

Peter Higgins:
It's exactly the same with renewable technology. We're replacing, you know, long-established fossil fuel generation, electrical generation technology, and it needs an entire suite of options to replace that. We can't just rely on solar or just wind or just tide, you know, any of these. It's going to be a multi; it's a package deal basically to replace it.

Liz Allan:
So it's, and it's exciting fighting as well do you know, actually moving to different things and Well, I mean I know lots of people don't like change but obviously because part of my job, I love, I love seeing different things happening because if we was, if we stayed the same all the time, wouldn't it be really boring?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. Without innovation, without change. Yeah. We'd still be living in, still be.

Liz Allan:
On that horse, and you would still be in the horse and cart. Do you know what I mean? I just have me, my horse parked at the end of my drive, you know. You know, so, so yeah, what like I say, I think, I think it's brilliant. So, so those, those 300 gullies, how, how did, how are they tending to be split across or how, you know, because you've got your, you'll have your list of where they're all going to go and you're going to get your guys in there and do all their, their kind of, you know, their channel works and stuff like that. Are you that 57% we talked about earlier, of houses that don't have driveways? Are you trying to cover as much of that 57% as possible? I know, I know it's not always possible with the funds you've got and 300 might not. But you know what I, how far do you feel you're getting. Or you're going to be getting with, you know, with.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah. Luckily, the spread is already quite even, so we've got 30. 30 already good to go. And those are quite nicely, evenly spread around the city, which is good. You know, politically, we're split into three constituencies, North, Central and South. And we've got. Would be gullies in all of those constituencies. I can already see one particular area in Stoke on Trent getting a little bit more attention than the rest, but that's because it's a slightly more affluent area.

Peter Higgins:
So you'll expect that because those. Even though it's terraced, it's. It's a slightly more affluent terraced area.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
And some others. And obviously, the areas where there's going to be more taxis. Taxi ownership.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, yeah.

Peter Higgins:
They'll. They're likely going to be one of the early adopters as well, because it makes more economic sense for them, basically, to switch to EV and therefore charge at home as well. It's a double, Double whammy for them. You know, we get sort of stuck in an environmental bubble sometimes. Some people do, and, you know, we think it's the most important issue in the world and it might be. Very well might be. But we forget that a lot of people, they only care about the change in the pocket.

Liz Allan:
Of course they do, absolutely.

Peter Higgins:
That's such a big driver of change, just, you know, day to day, because it's, you know, it's. It's. It's a tough old life into it. People live month to month, week to week, and if you can make that a little bit easier for them, then that's massive, the amount of change you can offer just by. Yeah. And as a byproduct, it's also better for the environment and better for air quality. So that's like a triple win.

Liz Allan:
I suppose, really. So you've just got me thinking, then, going back to the whole equity side of stuff. And it's funny because I don't know whether I might have said this. A few weeks back, there was a video by. A bit of a skit video by Zaptec, which I thought was brilliant. I don't know whether you saw it where there was a guy with a mobile petrol station on the back of his truck kind of thing. And it made me laugh so much because there was. They were sort of skitting the fact that, you know, going to get.

Liz Allan:
We're going to try and install petrol stations at your house kind of thing. So it did. It did make me laugh. But. But what. What I suppose the question is, you've still got that. That resident has still got to buy a charger, haven't they? You know, so when the gully goes in and then they still got to buy a charger.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah.

Liz Allan:
How is that something that you are stuck. Council work can advise them on how. How does it, how does it work? Because I know that say, for example, if I'm right, I might be. Somebody can correct me afterwards. I have a feeling like there are certain energy companies that will. If, say, for example, I don't know, I don't want to mention who because I might got it wrong. Where you can kind of buy a charger on finance.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm aware of that as well.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, yeah.

Peter Higgins:
Again, I'm. I'm not allowed to name any brand names.

Liz Allan:
No, no, no, no, no, exactly. So I suppose this. Because that is a cost in itself, isn't it?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. And you know, even stuff like you can, you can buy most things on. On finance now, can't you even. Like if it's, you know, when you make your purchase and it asks if you want to pay by Klarma. So stuff like that and yeah, so I think, you know, most things now you can sort of split the cost and yes, it's still an initial outlay, but you're going to get that, your return of investment back so quickly, especially if you're switching from an ICE vehicle to an electric. You're talking a matter of months.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, you've.

Peter Higgins:
You've made all the money back.

Liz Allan:
So if you've got that, if you've got that written into the document as well, or into your comms and stuff like that.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The amount of savings that you can make. Yeah, that, that is a. Because at the moment that is the only outlay, the initial outlay that the resident has to make is that charger in the install of it. There is still the government grant available, I think. I'm. I'm not sure when that runs out. I think it's the end.

Peter Higgins:
It's either the end of the year or the end of tax year. It's usually the end of the tax year. But, you know, whether they choose to.

Liz Allan:
Extend that, you've got opportunity then, then it's always, it's always good. But I mean, you know, and it depends on. Depends on where you buy the charger from, what you're getting, how much it costs and all that kind of stuff. But. But I suppose if there's anything to kind of keep those costs down for people. Like you said. I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that everybody who lives in a terraced house is kind of have got, you know, kind of different lower income, but it doesn't have to, you know, there are lots of places that, or lots of people that do have lower income if they do want to move because actually they've seen a second hand ev, actually it'll fit their needs. They've got, they've got a terraced house or whatever, they haven't got a driveway and they just want that, just want that charger.

Liz Allan:
Because if it, you know, if it costs you, you three to five quid to, to kind of charge it on an overnight rate, then my God, the benefit, the benefits compared to using public charge. Yeah, it's, it is, it's enormous, isn't it? So the fact that you're, you are covering that 57% as much as you possibly can is, it's fabulous, honestly. It really is.

Peter Higgins:
You know, the only time we sort of step in to advise on what charges people may or may not be able to have is when their property is one of those terraced properties, a bit like Coronation street, where it's directly onto the pavement.

Liz Allan:
Right.

Peter Higgins:
So you open your front door and you're onto the pavement because then the charger is overhanging our highway. So with that though, it's, it's only size really. That's the only thing that we're concerned of. Just to make sure that it's not encroaching onto the highway too much and that there's still enough pavement left even when the cables attach to the box for people to get past easily without it being an inconvenience.

Liz Allan:
But I suppose in that case, if there's lamp posts around and you can put a charger in a, you know, you can use one of the lamp post chargers then would that kind of help with that issue of them being straight onto the pavement? But then, I mean, I know it's still classed as public charging and it's not quite as cheap as having your own charger, but would that, is that something that, that a resident can ask for if, if they can't.

Peter Higgins:
If they can't really be a solution in Stoke because all our lamp posts are at the back of the pavement.

Liz Allan:
Oh, are they?

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, I think we've only got a handful of like the old like heritage lampposts.

Liz Allan:
Yeah.

Peter Higgins:
Where they're at the front of the highway and. Yeah. So it's, it's, yeah. Lamppost charging isn't really thing in Stoke because we've never, we've never had to address it because it, it's a problem as much as it's a solution.

Liz Allan:
I do know another Shamala Gag Gill from Coventry City Council, which I know she's, what she's doing, she's working with the Lamp Post, a lamppost charging company and one of the gully providers because she's got some of those as well where they're at the back of the back of the pavement and she's getting them both, them to work together so that, you know, you can charge that way. But I suppose it's like I say, it's only in, it's in certain environments, isn't it? In certain places you've got. But yeah, again, that's just a different, a different kind of. Different kind of thing.

Peter Higgins:
There's plenty of charges on the market that fit within our specified size.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, yeah.

Peter Higgins:
Size restrictions as well. Yeah, yeah. And as gullies become more and more, these sort of regulations will become more prevalent and the, the charger companies will start making more and more units that are compatible with being, you know, because at the moment it's not a consideration they have to worry about, the EV charger companies have to worry about. But as soon as it becomes. Becomes more commonplace, it will start to affect them. So they'll, they will want to create a product that complies and can be used in these properties because otherwise it's a section of the market that they're not exploiting.

Liz Allan:
Yeah, yeah. And like you going back to then, that inclusivity, we've got to try and make sure that we've, you know, we include as many people as possible. I'm going to ask you one final question.

Peter Higgins:
Oh yeah.

Liz Allan:
So what lessons learned? There's going to be a lot of these. Have you had that you can kind of, you can share with, with the account. You know, anybody who's watching at the moment, watching or listening, you know what, what is your biggest lesson learned from. From this. If you could just say one thing that you kind of go, this is the biggest thing that I've learned just to take away.

Peter Higgins:
The biggest one would be for anybody considering doing this in their authority would be to steal homework. You know, it's. Plagiarism isn't a thing. You know, we're not in university anymore. Plagiarism doesn't matter. It's. Other people have already done the hard work, you know, not just me, other people. So by all means steal our homework.

Peter Higgins:
Just because all of us are willing to share anyway. I certainly know I am and like I say, Oxfordshire and Nottinghamshire have been very helpful in the early stages as well. So it's. Yeah, just steal somebody's homework. Just make life easy for yourself.

Liz Allan:
I think that's, that's a really good point. That is a really good point. So, so for those of you watching, listening, I really hope that, you know, you can kind of share. Share this information that, that Pete's kind of given us here. And, and like I say, I will share. I'll share as much as I can in the show. In the show notes definitely because. And just.

Liz Allan:
I know, I know you didn't mind me, Pete, asking you to break down some of that because they're a tech. They would were tex technical things in there that, you know, people don't always. They, you know, they don't understand about the. These things unless you've kind of been involved in it. Yeah, but, but yeah, it's, it's been really, really interesting talking to you and you just.

Peter Higgins:
Lovely chant.

Liz Allan:
I can't wait, I can't wait to see some of the comms that you put out. Make sure that you share them with us when.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, we'll do this comes out.

Liz Allan:
I want to see, see these, these gullies going in because actually, you know, the fact that you're leading the way as a council.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah.

Liz Allan:
You know, with, with using all four. Four different providers and doing this yourself.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, all four simultaneous. Doing everything ourselves. It's, yeah, it's sort of the extreme end of, of the spectrum I suppose, of what. What la's can. Can do as an option.

Liz Allan:
Just. It's just great. So. Well, listen, thank you. It's. It's just been a lot, it's been great and you're just a lovely guy to chat to. I'm sure everybody loves us that one out as well and really kind of open and honest. So, so I really appreciate you talking to me.

Peter Higgins:
Yeah, no worries at all. And yeah, I'll probably see it in an event sometime soon again anyway. Definitely end up on the same train or something.

Liz Allan:
Well, there's that, there's that. So to everybody watching and listen, I'm going to say thanks to Pete, thanks to you all. Please do as I usually ask, you know, please have a look on our podcast page on LinkedIn. We've got obviously the YouTube channel. Michelle, who's wonderful, who kind of does all the, all the shorts and stuff. So check out, check out some of the shorts. Anything you can do to support spread the word. Please do it.

Liz Allan:
But now I'm going to say thank you for watching, listening, and I will see you next time. Bye. Bye. See you.