Charging is one of the most talked about issues within the move to #netzero for the UK. Charging needs to be made readily available in all areas.
For example, on-street installs are just over the 2000 mark as of January this year and only 435 were installed in the 3 months prior to January. There are planned installs for around 4,500 units across the local authorities but currently only 1 in 6 English councils have installed on street charge points! This in my opinion is not the right choice or avenue to be taken as 40% of households in the UK don't have access to a drive or private parking - undoubtedly the lack of access to charging points will slow the move to EV / #netzero.
DRS (Domestic Recharging Scheme) – has delivered 277,030 charging devices since 2013, with 88,624 device installations funded since January 1, 2021, an increase of almost 60%.
Meanwhile, the WCS (Workplace Charging Scheme) has funded the installation of 22,977 sockets in workplace carparks at the start of the year since the scheme started in 2016. It had funded 9,648 sockets installations since January 1, 2021, an increase of 72%.
It seems the public are making use of the schemes and understand the need to change, but Local Authorities are still not "charged up" on the idea and there are even cases where funds intended for on street chargers are being used in car parks. This isn't ideal for residents within these areas and the idea needs to be "parked" itself (well, chargers do need to be made available but not through the On-Street Residential Charge Point Scheme (ORCS).
We should not be reducing these schemes and should be incentivising the transition to EV and helping to pave the way for our EV Futures.
On-street EV charging concerns highlighted in new DfT figures
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