A new nine-bay ultra-rapid charging hub has opened at Parkway Central retail park, designed with both fleet and private drivers in mind.

The site’s Kempower chargers, installed by national charging network Be.EV, can charge at up to 150kW

The site’s Kempower chargers, installed by national charging network Be.EV, can charge at up to 150kW and can add up to 165 miles of range in a 20-minute stop. The site also has the infrastructure ready for an easy upgrade to 20 charging bays as EV adoption grows.

The charge points are ideally located for fleet drivers given the proximity to the main thoroughfare. There’s also no height restriction barriers on site and a huge variety of choices for food and refreshments nearby.

The charge points are accompanied by three labelled waiting bays, giving EV owners clear spaces to queue if the hub becomes busy. There are also two marked accessible bays, one of which is fully PAS 1899 compliant, to make this charging hub as easy-to-use as possible for disabled users.

Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV, said: ​​“Fleet drivers make up a significant part of the UK’s motoring community and they need convenient charging more than most. It’s a key priority of ours to make Be.EV synonymous with the fleet community.”

The Parkway Central Retail Park is on a key trunk-road, located between Sheffield city centre and the M1 and with an average of over 66,000 vehicles pass every day, contributing significantly to air pollution.

This site, located less than three miles from the city centre, will help encourage Sheffield residents to transition to EVs and improve the region’s health as a whole.

Air pollution causes one in 20 deaths in Sheffield and while the city’s Clean Air Zone has already gone a long way in tackling this problem, charging infrastructure is one piece of the puzzle that will help to improve this further, accelerating the region’s shift to EVs.

This is important, as Yorkshire and the Humber has some of the poorest charging provision in the country, with only three regions in the UK having fewer ultra-rapid chargers.