The analysis found that Derbyshire in the northeast of England and Redditch in the West Midlands are among the worst areas in public “charging deserts” for electric vehicles, with 9.3 million households lacking off-street parking space where a charger can be installed.
More than three-quarters of households that park their cars on the street do not have a public charger for electric vehicles within a five-minute walk, according to an analysis by consultancy Field Dynamics.
The number of charging locations is growing rapidly, with the number of public chargers across the UK set to increase by 46% in the year to July 2023, according to data firm ZapMap. But regulators are concerned about vast areas known as “charging deserts” where the public network is not well-served, particularly outside cities.
The gap in charging rates between London and the rest of the UK has widened on average, from 32 percentage points in 2020 to a gap of 47 percentage points this year. In 38 local authorities, less than 10% of households have car parks covered by a public charger network.
Craig Stevenson, managing director of Field Dynamics, said local authorities “should look to build infrastructure beyond their boundaries, rather than just covering areas with high EV penetration at the moment”.
For many UK families, owning an electric car makes both financial and practical sense compared to a petrol or diesel car.
But there’s a divide between those who can charge at home and those who have to rely on the public network: Some drivers who don’t live within walking distance of a public charger might be able to use a fast charger further away, but that would mean having to wait and possibly paying a higher fee.
Electric vehicle charging speed
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Not all chargers are the same
More and more people are buying electric vehicles and having to deal with charging them for the first time. But not all chargers are the same, and the plethora of options can be confusing.
Charging speed is measured in kilowatts (kW) of power, while battery capacity is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh) – for example, the Nissan Leaf has a battery capacity of 39kWh, while the Tesla Model Y has a battery capacity of 60kWh.
Charging time varies depending on the size of your battery. Divide the battery size by the power to get a rough idea of how long it will take. (For example, a 60kWh battery will take about 3 hours to charge on a 22kW charger.) Faster charging tends to be more expensive.
Low speed: 3kW to 6kW
They are commonly found in home and roadside chargers. They are good for overnight charging. A UK three pin plug plugged into a home power outlet will provide around 2.3kW of power, but this is not recommended.
High speed: 7kW to 22kW
They are installed in urban areas such as supermarkets and shopping centers. They can charge a small battery in just a few hours.
Rapid: 23kW to 100kW
Motorway service stations and dedicated public charging hubs. A 50kW charge can get you to 80% capacity in under an hour.
Ultra-high speed: 100kW or more
Some of the newest and most expensive cars can handle up to 270kW of power, adding hundreds of miles of driving range in 10 minutes.
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Field Dynamics calculated which households would rely on public chargers. It used algorithms and Ordnance Survey data to find “parkable” plots where a Ford Fiesta could be parked next to a house. It found that 9.3 million of the UK’s 28.4 million households don’t have off-street parking space to install their own charger. It then used ZapMap’s public charger data to calculate how many of those homes were more than five minutes away from a public charger.
Homes in rural and suburban areas often have off-street parking, but towns and villages often do not, especially those that were developed before widespread car ownership began after the late 1950s.
North-east Derbyshire’s charger network covers just 1.3% of on-street households, many of which are in villages around Chesterfield.
Redditch is the next worst city, but despite being the heart of the West Midlands’ car industry and home to several car part manufacturers, only 3.2% of households on the street are covered.
By contrast, in the UK’s most affluent areas of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, 99% of households have charging equipment, and London also has four times as many chargers per household than the rest of the UK.
But local authorities outside London also have impressive charging networks: Brighton, a wealthy, long-standing Green Party stronghold, has an 83% charging rate, Coventry 76%, Portsmouth 58%. And even some more rural authorities are doing well: East Lothian, near Edinburgh, has 54% of households charging.
Quentin Wilson, founder of the FairCharge Group, which promotes electric vehicles, said: “Local authorities who have historically been very pro-EV have clearly got the best policies in place. I spoke to Coventry and Brighton about their EV infrastructure strategies many years ago and now their work is paying off.”
“But local authorities need more government support and private sector guidance on the technical aspects of building future-proof infrastructure, and the government’s £450m Levy (Rural Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) fund also needs to be easier to access. Unless the government helps and supports local authorities, the rollout of local infrastructure will remain uneven and inconsistent from area to area.”
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Field Dynamics data often shows significant differences in coverage within short distances: in Sefton, Merseyside, for example, just 3.7% of households on the street are covered, the fifth worst in the UK, whereas neighbouring Liverpool reaches 52.5%, making it one of the best-covered areas in the UK.
Sefton Borough Council said it was working on a charger strategy for later this year, with a focus on installations in car parks and community spaces, and was also applying for Levy funding.
Redditch Council said it was “aware of the issue” and was “working hard with our partners”, pointing to contracts to install chargers on council-owned land and plans for a consultation across Worcestershire County Council on a charger strategy.
A North East Derbyshire Council spokesman said it was installing more fast chargers and had applied for Levi’s funding to expand the network further.
The top ten local authorities are all in London
Kensington and Chelsea, 99%, Southwark, 99%, Westminster, 99%, Islington, 98%, Hammersmith and Fulham, 97%, Camden, 96%, Merton, 95%, Hackney, 94%, Waltham Forest, 91%, Lambeth, 91%.
Top 10 local authorities outside London
Brighton and Hove, 83%, Coventry, 76%, Portsmouth, 58%, East Lothian, 54%, Watford, 54%, Liverpool, 53%, Clackmannanshire, 49%, Shetland, 48%, Exeter, 44%, Orkney, 44%.
Bottom 10 local governments
North East Derbyshire, 1.3%, Redditch, 3.2%, Neath Port Talbot, 3.4%, Brentwood, 3.6%, Sefton, 3.7%, Fenland, 3.8%, Basildon, 3.8%, Bolsover, 4.1%, Walsall, 5.1%, Mansfield, 5.1%.
