Poor investment at a local and governmental level means private investment will be required to meet a target to install 300,000 public electric vehicle (EV) chargers by 2030, according to law firm RPC.
The Government set the target in June last year as part of the planned transition away from petrol and diesel cars.
Research by the RPC found that around 8,000 EV chargers were installed by local authorities in the UK over the past year. The firm has warned that the current pace of roll-out is too slow to meet the target.
Elizabeth Alibhai, partner and head of real estate at RPC, said: ‘The slow pace of EV installations by local authorities is a real concern.’
She said there was a ‘consensus’ that the Government’s £1.3bn fund for EV charging infrastructure roll-out would not be enough to reach the 2030 target, and private investment would be needed to plug the gap.
Ms Alibhai also argued that legislation may be needed to speed up roll-out, pointing out that ‘there is currently no specific duty on local authorities to deliver’.
The research also revealed significant variation in the pace of installation across the UK. Merton Council, for instance, reported the installation of 530 EV charging stations in 2022/23, while local authorities in Crawley, Dudley, Barking and Dagenham, Norwich and Wandsworth said they did not install any.
