BCP Council has been given £1.82million to fund electric vehicle infrastructure work across the conurbation.

The cash will be used to accelerate creation of charge points and enable more residents to switch to EVs and, in particular, to support those without off-street parking. 

It is estimated that between a quarter and a third of residential properties do not have off-street parking and need access to publicly available charging points to run a electric vehicle.

The council says it is contacted about twice a month from residents addressing the issue and requesting charging facilities.  

Awarded the finance from the Department for Transport Office for Zero admissions, £1.4 million will be received in a capital funding allocation while the remaining £373,000 will come as a Capability Fund allocation. 

90% of the finance has been said to be due to received by the council this month.  

In the BCP area there is currently 160 operational electric vehicle charging points, including 63 rapid chargers.

This is 48% up from October 2022.  

The council is also currently installing rapid EV charge points in 65 of it's car parks. 

Offering contracts to companies in the past to install charging points, the council has stated the fund would subsidise the capital cost installation where they are are not commercially viable.   

The council has also set up a Public Electric Vehicle Strategy in response, which is a short term strategy to improve EV charge point consumer experience and accelerate roll out of charging infrastructure. 

The strategy is also hoped to remove barriers for the public so they can transition to EVs quicker and help achieve net-zero carbon targets by 2050. 

In 2020, transport was responsible for 33% of of carbon dioxide emissions. 

As reported by the Echo, the number of public electric vehicle charging points in BCP has risen by nearly half over the year 2023.

Figures from the Department for Transport show there were 160 publicly available electric vehicle charging devices in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole as of October, including 63 rapid chargers.

Across the UK there were nearly 49,220 publicly available chargers as of October – a 42 per cent jump from 2022.

Of them, 8,908 were rapid chargers.