IN Brief:
- Liverpool has completed another 300-point on-street charging phase across more than 130 residential streets.
- The rollout uses integrated lamppost charging, combining existing street-lighting assets with new protection, wiring, testing, and activation.
- The programme adds to a growing pipeline of urban charging projects built around existing public-realm electrical infrastructure.
Liverpool City Council has expanded its on-street electric vehicle charging network with another 300 charge points installed across more than 130 residential streets, taking the city’s total beyond 670 units. The latest phase was delivered with Otaski Energy Solutions and J McCann & Co Ltd and keeps the council on course for its stated target of 2,000 on-street charge points by May 2027. The rollout forms part of a wider local authority programme aimed at extending access to charging for homes without driveways or other private off-street parking.
The new charge points have been installed directly into existing street lighting columns and offer charging speeds of up to 5kW. The programme has been funded through the government’s On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme, which supports charging infrastructure in residential areas where off-street provision is limited. In Liverpool, the siting process has been shaped partly by requests from residents and businesses, with each location assessed for suitability, accessibility, and the condition of the host lighting asset before installation. The council says the new infrastructure is backed by renewable electricity through Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin.
The delivery model relies heavily on adapting existing street-lighting infrastructure. McCann’s project account shows that the work was carried out by the council’s street-lighting maintenance contract team and completed in just over a month within a fixed funding window. Existing columns were modified internally to accommodate the charging hardware, which involved removing control gear, reconfiguring internal space, and fitting EV charging units from multiple manufacturers. Each installation included a double-pole isolator, residual current protection, fusing, and associated power and control cabling.
Commissioning was handled as a full electrical installation programme rather than a simple street-furniture addition. McCann says the units were tested using Megger MFTX1 and EVX100 equipment to verify continuity, insulation resistance, electrical safety, and operational performance before handover. Site surveys covered structural condition, fuse ratings, cut-out condition, earthing and PEN protection arrangements, footway constraints, and service avoidance requirements. Those checks are especially important where existing public assets are being repurposed at volume and where hardware has to fit into a wide range of column types and ages.
The project also highlights some of the practical issues that emerge when rollouts move from pilot phases into larger installation programmes. McCann says the Liverpool phase encountered problems including over-length fixing bolts, cable-entry arrangements that reduced usable internal space in some columns, and redundant data cabling that extended installation time without adding functional value. The use of two charger designs across the programme also affected early productivity. Those issues are typical of a market that is still converging on standard approaches for on-street delivery, particularly where charging equipment is being integrated into infrastructure that was never designed for it.
Lamppost charging is becoming a more common route for urban deployment because it reduces civil works, limits street clutter, and makes use of existing public-realm assets. At the same time, it places greater weight on asset surveys, internal layouts, protection design, and maintenance access. The condition of the lighting estate can become a determining factor in both cost and speed, particularly as programmes move beyond one-off streets into citywide deployment. That has put increasing focus on repeatable installation methods, component standardisation, and back-office integration.
Liverpool’s next phase will show how effectively that model can scale from hundreds of units to thousands. The city’s target of 2,000 charge points by 2027 places it among the more active local authority programmes in the UK, and the engineering detail behind the current rollout gives a clearer picture of how those targets are being translated into live street infrastructure. Residents can view the current network and request new locations through the council’s on-street charging page.