Number of on-street electric car chargers installed by councils fell by more than 80 per cent last year, official figures show

The number of on-street electric car chargers installed by councils fell by more than 80 per cent last year, according to official figures.

An audit of Government data by the Daily Mail reveals that town halls delivered just 656 charge points last year. This was down from 4,066 the year before.

Meanwhile, more than half of councils failed to deliver any – with just 146 of 320 or so across the UK having done so.

Critics last night said it made a mockery of Labour’s decision to re-introduce the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars, as having enough chargers will be crucial for meeting the target.

The figures relate to the number of publicly available chargers installed using the Government’s flagship On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS).

Launched by the Government in 2017, the fund provides grants for local authorities towards the cost of installing publicly available charge points.

Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last year delayed the 2030 ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars by five years amid falling popularity of electric vehicles, which can be as much as £10,000 more expensive than their fossil fuel equivalents.

But the new Labour government has decided to reinstate the 2030 date along with a slew of other Net Zero policies.

Councils installed just 50 chargers using the ORCS fund in 2018. This jumped to 429 the following year, 1,407 in 2020, 1,746 in 2021 and 4,066 in 2022.

But last year this fell to 656, according to official data published by the Department for Transport. It means that, in total, 8,354 on-street chargers have been installed by councils since the ORCS fund’s launch.

The failure of councils to play more of a part in the planned electric vehicle revolution has fuelled falling demand for EVs among private individuals.

Some 15.2% of new cars registered in March were battery electric vehicles, down from 16.2% a year earlier.

The findings last night sparked fresh calls for ministers to rethink the 2030 target, designed to turbocharge Britain’s efforts to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050.

Tory MP Greg Smith said: ‘The lack of charging points is certainly putting off people from switching from their reliable petrol or diesel cars – that they can fill up in minutes – to a battery electric vehicle.

‘Councils are not daft and don’t see any great revolution happening in electric vehicle ownership. The 2030 date was always bonkers.’ Publicly available chargers are crucial if the new Government wants to hit its 2030 target, because an estimated 40 per cent of households do not have access to off-street parking, such as a private driveway.

This means they can’t install their own plug-in point at home and are reliant on public ones.

It is believed that many councils do not have the expertise to install chargers.

But they are also getting held up by the planning system and issues with connecting devices to the electricity grid.

Government officials point out for example, that thousands more applications for installing chargers have been approved and could come online soon.

The private sector is also installing publicly available plug-in points at a much faster rate.

There were 59,670 across the UK at the beginning of April, when council and privately installed ones are counted together. It means council-installed chargers account for just over 14 per cent of all devices.

The last Tory government’s target was to create 125,000 on-street residential chargers by 2030.

If the new Labour government keeps this, an average of around 58 a day need to be fitted between now and the end of the decade.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘We recognise the importance of reliable electric vehicle charging infrastructure and will set out plans to turbocharge the rollout in due course.’