Native councils are failing to spend money on electric car charging infrastructure, in response to damning new analysis.
Of the 216 native authorities (protecting 60 per cent of the UK inhabitants) that responded to a freedom-of-information request by DevicePilot, 52 per cent have spent no cash on EV charging infrastructure prior to now 12 months. That is despite the Authorities persevering with to supply funding via its on-street residential chargepoint scheme.
Nonetheless, the demand for chargers is there; 60 per cent of responding councils acquired complaints from the general public in regards to the availability, reliability or variety of charging factors of their areas over the identical 12-month interval.
To make issues worse, 48 per cent of the native authorities stated they both didn’t know what number of chargepoints they had been going to put in in 2022 or had been planning to put in none in any respect. On common, councils are planning to put in solely 52 chargers every by the tip of 2022.
London councils are much more proactive than these elsewhere, it seems. Native authorities within the capital spent £204,000 on chargers in 2021, greater than double the nationwide common, and are planning a median of 39 new chargers per 100,000 folks in 2022, in contrast with a nationwide common of 9 per 100,000 folks.
The common value of a chargepoint bought by a council is £6,000, though figures vary between £350 and £100,000 relying on the sort. Upkeep prices are estimated at £5.6million per yr.
Pilgrim Beart, CEO of DevicePilot, stated: “I’ve loads of sympathy for councils whose budgets have been stretched to breaking level by the pandemic and funds cuts, however we can’t proceed to let the divide between the EV haves and have-nots develop additional.
“It needs to be the UK’s short-term purpose to make sure everybody within the nation can reap the advantages of EVs, not simply the privileged few.”
Councillor Darren Rodwell, transport spokesperson for the Native Authorities Affiliation, added: “Councils aren’t liable for the supply of electrical automobile chargepoints. Nevertheless, they may spend money on a variety of measures to assist scale back carbon and different dangerous emissions from transport, together with funding in biking and strolling infrastructure, introducing clean-air zones, and investing in EV know-how.
“Every place is completely different and every council will make spending choices in response to their native priorities. The EV charging trade remains to be an rising one and councils should weigh up many competing calls for on each their assets, but additionally calls for on street house in addition to keep in mind any potential dangers from making business investments into EV chargepoints.”
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