That has been a challenge, depending on the supplier. We have used two suppliers. One took the whole process from me and dealt with it all from start to finish. Our preferred supplier that we use for the majority of our installations will do all the liaison with the DNO—in our case, Scottish Power. However, payment has to come through the council. As such, we have to place the order with Scottish Power, which can sometimes make things a bit confusing, because the wrong people are contacted about technical stuff and do not know what Scottish Power is talking about. There is also a wee bit of duplication of work. However, in the main, the connection process has been okay.
The process is not perfectly straightforward. It would be much easier if suppliers took it on completely—although I would not then know whether I was getting value for money. Through our current way of doing it, I see the price for the power supply and can then decide whether a particular site should go ahead. If it costs £13,000 to put in a power supply, it might be better to look for another location at which the price would not be so bad. Once a plan is going ahead, the supplier deals with the electricity provider to get everything moving forward. It has not been perfect.
Recently, an issue in relation to charging points has been lack of resources in the council. We have had to ask for someone to do site supervision, because things have been installed in slightly wrong places.
We have had a lot of issues, as I mentioned already, to do with street furniture and blocking people with disabilities. That is a concern for me. We have had an electric charging pillar, where the power comes in, right next to a charging point, which has made the footway too narrow.
We have tried to be very careful in making sure that we are equalities compliant, but I am not convinced that that message has been shared widely in other authorities. The situation is definitely evolving and getting better, but it could be more streamlined.