Sixteen local authorities are set to benefit from a £56m injection of cash aimed at driving forward the roll out of thousands of new electric vehicle (EV) charge points.

Today’s announcement by transport minister Jesse Norman will help deliver up to 2,400 charge points in the short term and will help councils install ‘tens of thousands more’ in the long term.

The funding will expand the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI), a scheme aimed at supporting the transition towards local charge point provision secured on a commercial basis, to 16 new pilot areas.

The new LEVI pilot areas are Buckinghamshire, Cumbria, Hackney, Harborough, Hounslow, Lancashire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Rotherham, Sunderland, Waltham Forrest, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, West Yorkshire and York.

The funding will also boost the existing On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) and help councils across England secure resource to develop in-house expertise to coordinate charge point plans and work with private operators.

Mr Norman commented: ‘The Government is giving local authorities across England additional help today to energise their charge point roll-out plans.

‘Today’s commitment will lead to thousands of new chargers being installed, and plans for tens of thousands extra in due course, so that more people than ever can make the transition to using EVs.’

In total, £22m of Government funding for the pilot areas is supported by an additional £17m of private funding, and £2m from public funds across local authorities.

In addition to expanding the pilot scheme, today also sees the launch of the £8m LEVI Capability Fund which will equip local authorities with the skills and ambition to scale up their plans when it comes to their charging strategy.

Today also sees the Government bringing forward a further £7m funding for the existing On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme, bringing the total funding this year to £37m.

Three thousand chargepoints have already been installed under ORCS with a further 10,000 in the pipeline, according to the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV).

This article was originally published by LAPV.