Despite access to electric vehicle charge points accelerating (see separate story), MPs from the influential Public Accounts Committee have criticised the government for the still ‘patchy’ availability that now ‘plagues large swathes of UK motorways’.
The committee has argued ministers have been slow to address gaps in charge point provision and raised concerns around regional divides and inequalities for different groups of drivers, especially those with disabilities.
To give drivers confidence to make the switch to electric vehicles, charge points needed to be installed in advance of need, they emphasised.
“Motorway service areas in particular act as a “shop window” for drivers to feel secure that charge points are widespread,” the MPs said in a recent report.
However, approximately a third of the 114 areas had yet to meet the Department for Transport’s (DfT) original ambitions for each to have six ultra-rapid charge points by the end of 2023, they concluded.
This was despite the government in 2020 announcing £950m to ‘future-proof electricity capacity on strategic roads’. Nearly five years later, the DfT had yet to issue any of this funding.
While government was on track to reach the minimum 300,000 points needed by 2030, these were not evenly spread across the country, the MPs also highlighted.
Too few had been installed outside London and the south east, which currently hosts 43% of all charge points.
The MPs also raised concerns around the impact on drivers with disabilities, those without access to off-street parking and disadvantaged groups, with not a single charge point in the country currently fully accessible.
Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: “It is welcome to see the EV charging roll-out beginning to ramp up, with all the implicit benefits that bearing down on emissions will bring.
“But this roll-out is not currently taking place equally across the nation. Meeting numerical targets for charging points is all very well. Delivering thousands of points allowing Londoners to easily zip around the capital while leaving the rest of the UK’s network patchy is obviously an outcome to be avoided.
“It is also of deep concern that the needs of disabled drivers are being ignored. We are risking baking a serious injustice into the fabric of a major part of our national infrastructure,” Sir Geoffrey added.
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