Across the next four years, only 9,317 on-street electric vehicle (EV) chargers are planned for installation by local councils, according to new data released by Centrica.
Sourced from Freedom of Information requests sent to over 400 councils, this data shows that on average this is only 35 chargers per council. Additionally, 126 councils across the UK have no concrete plans to install any more EV chargers than they currently have between now and the end of 2025, with there currently being 7,682 on-street chargers installed across the UK.
This is despite there being 2,835 requests for on-street charging made to councils in 2019 and 2,989 requests lodged to councils by September 2020.
Southern English councils are set to install two and a half times as many on-street chargers than councils in Northern England, the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, the research found, at 6,713 compared to 2,604.
Southern councils also plugged in 1,203 more chargers into their streets over the past three years than their northern counterparts, with Centrica also finding that 41% of drivers agree there is a north/south divide in council funding for EV chargers.
The supplier found that 49% of drivers unwilling to purchase an EV blamed the lack of access to on-street or public charging. Of those without a driveway or off-street parking, 53% said they are not considering purchasing an EV at all.
Amanda Stretton, sustainable transport editor at Centrica, said that it’s “unfair that those without a driveway risk getting left behind”, with the figures demonstrating “the need for all UK councils to play their part in helping to achieve the 2030 ban” on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
A number of on-street charging initiatives are currently underway. A trial looking into smart on-street subsurface charging was been unveiled by Element Energy in November 2020, whilst in May the same year it was announced that the Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund (CIIF) would be financing a project utilising Virgin Media’s existing infrastructure for on-street chargers.
