Bicester EZ-Charge seeks £1M investment to provide public electric vehicle charging points in Oxfordshire

By Nicky Godding

19 October 2021

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Bicester-based EZ-Charge is seeking to raise £1,200,000 through Ethex, an Oxford based positive investing platform to install and operate 280 electric vehicle (EV) charging points in public car parks across Oxfordshire.

EZ-Charge is a charge point operator providing reliable and straightforward EV charging infrastructure. By partnering with Oxfordshire County Council and the University of Oxford, EZ-Charge is looking to develop itsPark and Charge project in the county.

Infrastructure works on the project will start next month and all charge points will be live end of February 2022.

The 10-year bond offer is targeting a six per cent return and investments are IFISA eligible, for potential tax-free returns. The money invested will be used to develop the Oxfordshire Park & Charge project in local authority car parks, facilitating more than 2,800 EVs from its first year of operation.

Lisa Ashford, CEO of Ethex: “In the build up to COP26 the focus on meeting climate targets is stronger than ever. Part of meeting those targets in the UK is undoubtedly a shift away from vehicles powered by fossil fuels. But for that to be a realistic goal it has to be made easier to charge said vehicles. We’re proud to be supporting EZ-Charge as they set about tackling this challenge.”

Phil Shadbolt OBE, Chairman and CEO, EZ-Charge “Finding innovative ways of tackling the number of EV charging points accessible to the general public is going to be a key challenge for enabling the spread of EVs in the UK. We believe that our project, in partnership with Oxfordshire Council and Oxford University, could prove to be an easily transferable infrastructure plan for the rest of the UK.”

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.