Where are the cold spots in the UK’s EV charging network?
Tom Riley of the Fast Charge Newsletter recently blogged about DfT’s admission that there is a top secret list of public EV charging “cold spots” which they are monitoring. Actually, we made up the bit about top secret, but whilst we wait for them to offer up a list, we thought we’d try to bet on the likely locations.
Not sure if Ladbrokes’ll offer odds, but we ran some analysis of Government’s latest public charge point data (January 2025) and compared it against the most recent data on the locations where privately kept battery electric cars are registered (Q2 2024 - VEH0132 - we haven’t included company kept cars as they use the address of the ultimate car owner, not the leaseholder - a poor predictor of where the car is actually being charged).
This gives us a ratio of actual EVs in use to charge points - far more meaningful than the DfT’s regular publications of charge points per 100,000 of population which give the Telegraph a lot of fun constantly bemoaning the lack of chargers in rural areas, but completely disregard the fact that levels of EV ownership in those areas are lower too.
[Note to SMMT: charge point firms are commercial entities. They install charge points where there is demand. They don’t install 1.2m or some other made up number and then wait 10 years for your members to build the cars.]
Before we reveal the bottom 10, try to imagine the identities of the local authority cold spots. Given the constant reports of more charge points in London than the next 5 biggest local authorities put together, you might be thinking deprived northern boroughs, facing multiple chronic social problems who might have needed - understandably, but disappointingly - to deprioritise charge point installation.
If so, you’d be wrong. Here’s the list.
Gritty metropolitan areas in the North of England are in fact, completely absent. 3 of the worst performing areas are in the East of England, 3 in the Midlands, 2 in Scotland, and 1 apiece in the South and in London. London, which we thought had stolen all the charge points that rightfully belonged to the rest of us.
We did this analysis back in May last year. Interestingly 5 of the 10 councils in our bottom 10 (those in bold) were in the bottom 10 then too. The other 5 have all been around or about the bottom 10 for most of the past year as well.
So what unites these local authorities - other than very low provision of public charge points per EV? Seemingly, nothing. They’re not exclusively poor, rich, rural, urban, liberal or conservative. This also suggests that they’re not being excluded by the furiously competitive charge point sector for market-related reasons. And we can probably rule out the idea that they’re being victimised, or that the relevant pages have fallen out of CPOs’ road atlases.
So whilst we should give credit to Harrow which added 12 (16%) charge points in the past quarter, and to Castle Point which has tripled its charge point numbers from, er, 3 - its first additions since 2021 - most of these LAs appear to belong firmly on DfT’s watch list.
And given the persistence of low charge point provision in these areas, we ought to be considering something more than a watchlist. The Tories talked for a long time about a power to direct Local Authorities to provide charge points (see former Minister Anthony Browne’s evidence at Q88). Great idea, but it never happened. Labour made a commitment to binding charge point targets in its automotive strategy - less keen on this, but we’ve seen no sign of it happening either.
Perhaps we could all ought to start by laying off the lazy London vs the Rest comparisons, and lay off the northern metropolitan boroughs, many of whom are amongst the best performers. And then start treating our cold spots.