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Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy

The North East Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy aims to create excellent infrastructure and well-informed people, who can access the right chargepoints and information when they need it, with the aim of leading to an increase in Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV), and a reduction in carbon emission across the region.

In December 2023, the North East Joint Transport Committee approved a new North East Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy covering Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and Durham. This strategy mainly focuses on car and van drivers that will rely on the publicly available infrastructure network in the region to charge their electric vehicle, to deliver reliable public Zero Emission Vehicle charging infrastructure across the North East, wherever people need it.

Delivery plan

The strategy sets out a delivery plan with an initial list of ZEV schemes worth approximately £80 million. The plan includes sites identified as part of a refreshed enabling study.

The enabling study has identified an initial 221 strategically located chargepoint sites to grow the charging network across the region (see ZEV Strategy Appendix 1). We will continue to work towards expanding the public charging network, when funding is available.

The delivery plan is a “live pipeline” of schemes and is expected to further develop over time. The proposed investments and initiatives set out in the strategy broadly consist of:

  • the creation of an EV partnership group with the public and private sector
  • new public EV chargepoint infrastructure
  • maintenance and upgrading of the existing public chargepoint network
  • increased awareness and information to help people to make the transition to ZEVs
  • innovation schemes to develop ZEV technology
  • flexible procurement framework (NEPO) available to deliver public EV chargepoint infrastructure

To achieve the ambitions of this Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy, we will work in collaboration with central government, partners, and local people.

Electric charging point symbol painted on paved surface.

ZEV Policy

Before the strategy was approved, the North East Joint Transport Committee approved the first regionwide Zero Emission Vehicle Policy in March 2022. This is an outline of the region’s aim to lead the country in boosting the up-take of Electric Vehicles (EV) by developing and expanding charging facilities.

The North East Zero Emission Vehicle Policy predicts that in the next 15 years, as many as 28,000 publicly available EV charging points could be required to meet demand from users across the region. This will be progressed through a regionwide programme that sits across all public and private bodies, to direct activities that support the uptake of ZEVs, including monitoring progress made by partners, and making charging information available to the public in simple and easy to access formats.

North East ZEV Strategy

Find out more about our aims to increase uptake of electric vehicles in the region.

Download the ZEV Strategy

Consultation summary

This report summarises feedback from the public consultation on our proposed strategy.

Download the consultation report
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