OXFORD will be the first city in the world to trial ‘pop-up’ on-street electric vehicle charging points.

The city has been awarded £474,000 to take part in the pilot. As part of it, there will be 20 UEone retractable bollards installed on streets with on-road parking.

But now the council wants residents who want to take part in the pilot to get in touch.

The UEone has been developed with the 43 per cent of UK homes who have only on street car parking in mind. They are app-operated and can retract underground when they are not in use.

The bid was made by Oxford City Council and two companies, Duku and Urban Electric, and has received £473,595 of funding from Innovate UK, the Government’s innovation agency.

Tom Hayes, the city council’s board member for safer and greener environment, said: “Everything Oxford does to tackle emissions has to be practical if it’s going to be effective. We have set ourselves the big goal of introducing the world’s first zero-emissions zone to clean up our toxic and illegal air.

“But we will only achieve that goal if we support and encourage local drivers to replace their older polluting vehicles with cleaner versions. I’m thrilled that the council has secured funding to support the world’s first pop-up electric vehicle charging points trial and that this sits within our practical approach to cleaning up our dirty air.”

Overall, the project will cost £600,000 with the remaining funding coming from Urban Electric via private investment.

The council’s Sustainable Cities team will work with the authority’s company Oxford Direct Services and Scottish and Southern Energy Networks (SSEN) to install them.

The UEone project will support the Go Ultra Low trial, which is being coordinated by the city council and Oxfordshire County Council.

As part of Go Ultra Low, 100 electric vehicle charging points are being installed in residential streets across Oxford. That is another project thought to be a world first on that scale.

All projects aim to reduce air pollution and further lower Oxford’s toxic emissions.

In March, the Government pledged to adopt a ‘more formal approach’ to support the city council to tackle Oxford’s illegal levels of air pollution.

Olivier Freeling-Wilkinson, a co-founder of Urban Electric, said: “The cheapest, most convenient and grid-friendly way to charge an electric vehicle is at home, yet up to 85 per cent of households in some urban residential areas cannot do so because they park on-street.”