Councils get £20m of Government funding for local EV infrastructure schemes

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced £20m of funding to improve electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure for councils.

Nine local authorities will pilot rapid on-street chargers and ‘petrol-station-style’ charging hubs.

Across the nine selected areas, the funding will enable the delivery of 1,000 EV charging points. All chargers installed using the funding, which consists of both Government money and funding from the private sector, will be publicly accessible.

In each selected location, on-street charging points will be installed in residential areas. Research from the Government and NGOs has repeatedly found that a major barrier to EV adoption is that many UK residents do not have access, at home, to a driveway or garage where they could install a charging point.

Estimations show around seven million of the UK’s 27.8 million homes do not have a driveway.

The allocation of the funding follows the launch of the highly-anticipated EV Infrastructure Strategy back in March. That Strategy kick-started the development of the LEVI. It also includes a commitment to £950m of investment in rapid charging points across the motorway network by 2035, as well as measures to improve charging point reliability, accessibility and affordability.

These initiatives will run alongside the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS), which has allocated funding for 2,869 charging points so far. The AA stated earlier this month that the DfT should make it easier for councils to apply for ORCS funding, after Department figures revealed that only 107 local authorities in England had their applications approved.

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