£4.5m funding boost for London's electric vehicle charging points

Charging points will be installed in 25 boroughs

Almost £4.5 million has been allocated to London boroughs to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure on the capital's streets.

A total of 25 boroughs, each receiving up to £300,000, will install 1,500 standard-speed on-street charging points in residential areas.

The funding allocations have been sought based on perceived demand and electric vehicle take-up.

The £4.48 million, allocated on Thursday (August 3), forms part of an award London received from the government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles’ Go Ultra Low City Scheme - a nationwide competition to give several areas funding to increase electric vehicle use.

Brent's first Electric Vehicle Charge Point is up and running on Dudley Road

The boroughs given funding under the award are:

• Barnet,
• Bexley,
• Brent,
• Camden,
• Croydon,
• Ealing,
• Greenwich,
• Hackney,
• Hammersmith and Fulham,
• Havering,
• Hounslow,
• Islington,
• Kensington and Chelsea,
• Lambeth,
• Lewisham,
• Merton,
• Newham,
• Redbridge,
• Richmond,
• Southwark,
• Tower Hamlets,
• Waltham Forest,
• Wandsworth,
• Westminster.

Further funding will be allocated to interested boroughs in 2018/19 once Transport for London, London Councils and the Greater London Authority are happy with progress being made on the current allocation.

The addition of new fully electric buses on routes 46, 153 and 214 will bring the total number of electric buses in London to over 170.

This includes route 360, which will convert to fully electric buses later this year, and routes 70 and C1 are set to follow in spring 2018.

A £42m fund was set out in July, to encourage the owners of the oldest, most polluting diesel black cabs to retire them from the capital’s fleet, another measure put in place by Tfl and the Mayor to clean London's air.

All cars and vans zero emissions by 2050

Head of the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), Natasha Robinson, said: “It’s fantastic to see the funding from the government’s Go Ultra Low City Scheme being used to help the residents of boroughs across London make the transition to ultra low emission vehicles.

"This helps to support the government’s ambition that almost all cars and vans should be zero emission by 2050.”