Highways England is on track to reach its targets for deployment of electric vehicle chargers next summer after revealing that 83% of its network is within 20 miles of a charger.

The government body set a target of ensuring 95% of its strategic road network was served by an electric vehicle charger within this distance by 2020. This work is being carried out as part of a £15 billion investment promised in a road investment strategy up to 2021.

Through a programme of grant initiatives, collaboration with local authorities and use of a specialist framework of suppliers, the former Highways Agency has made significant progress towards this target.

In addition, plans are already in place to deliver the remaining chargers as a Highways England spokesman explained to Current±.

“We continue to work collaboratively with local authorities to provide grants to install charge points on local authority land, which will help us achieve a further 4% of coverage towards our commitment. We anticipate this could be achieved by summer 2019.

“We will be awarding a specialist framework for the installation of a further 65 rapid chargers, again by summer 2019, to provide a further 8% coverage.”

Read more: Current News