More than 2,000 new electric car charge points are to be rolled out across England with the help of £56m in public and industry funding.

A total of 2,400 new charge points will be installed in areas including  Cumbria, Norfolk and West Sussex

Announced by the Department for Transport, the new funding will initially be used to install 2,400 charge points in the short term, while supporting local councils to deliver tens of thousands more in the long term.

The funding expands the current Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Pilot in Barnet, Durham and North Yorkshire, while also launching 16* new pilot scheme areas for local authorities including Sunderland, Rotherham and Norfolk.

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

In addition to expanding the pilot scheme, a new £8m LEVI Capability Fund launches to enable local authorities to scale up their plans when it comes to their charging strategy.

The funding will help local authorities work in tandem with private business and charge point operators to develop ambitious charge point plans for their areas and drive the growth of local networks.

The Government has also brought forward a further £7m funding for the existing On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme, bringing the total funding this year to £37m. The scheme has already been used to install 3,000 charge points, with a further 10,000 in the pipeline.

Other government funding schemes already available to help install charge points include the Workplace Charging Scheme, Landlord grant and the Private/Rental grant.

Technology and Decarbonisation Transport Minister Jesse Norman commented on the boosted funding, saying: “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.”

VWFS welcomed the funding. Darren Braybrook, commercial development manager of electric vehicles, said: “We’ve been tracking the UK’s adoption of electric vehicles for the past year, and the inadequate provision of public charging – whether real or perceived – is always named as one of the main blockers in making the switch to an electric vehicle. The playing field is not level when it comes to charging availability across the UK. This is a move in the right direction to help redress that balance, but there is still a long way to go.”

Consumer watchdog Which also said it was a step in the right direction. But Sue Davies, head of consumer protection policy, added: “The Government must also move quickly to implement its plans to improve the driver experience of using the public charging networks by extending reliability standards across the full network and ensuring proposals for payment roaming make paying to charge much simpler.

“Charging needs to be easy, reliable and seamless to support people making the move to an electric vehicle.”

Latest Zap-Map charging stats show the UK has just under 37,851 public charging devices.

Its figures for 2022 also reveal that the total number of devices rose by 8,680 last year; a 31% increase. Meanwhile, the number of rapid charging or above devices increased by 34%, equating to an additional 1,731 public devices installed.

Melanie Shufflebotham, COO of Zap-Map, said: “The number of public chargers is rapidly increasing every year but it’s vitally important that the infrastructure keeps pace with demand.

“This new funding provides an added boost which will encourage even more people to switch to electric vehicles, reducing our reliance on polluting fossil fuels and enabling drivers to play their part in the transition to cleaner and greener transport.”

*The 16 new pilot scheme areas comprise Buckinghamshire, Cumbria, Hackney, Harborough, Hounslow, Lancashire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Rotherham, Sunderland, Waltham Forest, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, West Yorkshire and York.