Westminster aims to offer more EV charge points than any other local authority

Westminster City Council is planning to nearly double the number of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points in the central London borough by installing an additional 500 charging points by March 2023 – taking the total to over 2,000 charging points, more it claims, than any other local authority in the country.

The council has recently been successful in securing a large award of external funding from central Government that will result in a further 500 resident charging points, to add to the 1,500 that are already on the public highway in Westminster. While the council is committed to installing at least 500 by March 2023, it is working towards installing an additional 500 charging points (1,000 in total) throughout the rest of 2023.

The installation of these additional EV charging points will start in September 2022 in the south of the borough and this additional investment will add to the already large network of charging points in the borough, encouraging residents to make the switch to electric vehicles in a bid to combat pollution.

Currently the council has 1,250 lamp post charge points which will be updated to ‘SmartSocket’ points over the next two months, with the initial trial to be rolled out at the end of September in partnership with Ubitricity, which will see reduced prices for residents to be able to charge off-peak, overnight. Encouraging overnight charging will also relive pressure on the grid.

The council is also increasing its provision of the standard, free standing fast charging points and is also looking at increasing rapid EV charging provision. Next year, there will be an additional 30 rapid, high kilowatt charging points for commercial vehicles to use, turning , says the council “white van men into green van men”.

In March 2020, the council teamed up with Siemens and Ubitricity to unveil the UK's first fully converted lamppost charging, the ‘Electric Avenue’ on Sutherland Avenue, W9 where residents can charge their electric vehicles at 24 lampposts at various locations along the street using the ubitricity 'SmartSocket' technology. Since this launch, Westminster now has over 40 ‘Electric Avenues’, where there are at least seven resident EV charging points along one street.