Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure electric car charging points are accessible across the UK.

Andrew Jones

Plug-in vehicles are generally charged at home and overnight, and so the Government provides grants of up to £500 for the installation of domestic chargepoints. More than 60,000 have been installed to date. The UK also has over 11,000 publicly accessible chargepoints; in streets, car parks and motorway service areas. This includes almost 900 rapid chargepoints that can charge a car in 20-30 minutes – the largest network in Europe.

The Department’s Roads Investment Strategy includes funding of £15m to improve the network of chargepoints on the strategic road network, and the Go Ultra Low city scheme is expected to deliver around 750 more publicly accessible chargepoints in UK towns and cities by 2020. We will announce further targeted support for plug-in vehicle chargepoints in due course.

Government-funded chargepoints must meet a minimum common standard for chargepoint outlets, and include ‘pay as you go’ functionality.