Wigan revealed as one of the worst places in the country to own an electric car
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Research by car usership experts CarGuide.co.uk analysed the number of electric car charging points on ZapMap and Office for National Statistics data to establish which area in the UK with a population of more than 100,000, has the highest and lowest number of charging points per 100,000 population.
And Wigan comes a lowly sixth from bottom across the whole country, with 12.4 points per 100,000, which equates to about 50 chargers in all across the whole borough.
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Hide AdThere’s no respite for those living near Wigan’s north eastern border either because neighbouring Bolton is the worst place of all with only 8.3 charging points.
Other areas in the top 10 include Walsall, Southend-on-Sea, Dudley, Stockport and Oldham.
The data found that Milton Keynes is the area in the UK with the highest number of charging points per 100,000 people, at 137.3. This comes as a result of 371 total charging points in the area and a population of 270,203. It is followed by Coventry, Brighton and London.
Julie Middlehurst, assistant director for infrastructure and regulation, said: “Making the switch to an electric vehicle not only creates significant environmental benefits by reducing CO2 emissions, but allows the vehicle owner to save money on fuel costs. However, we understand that certainty over charging availability can be a major constraint to uptake and we are working hard to resolve this.
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Hide Ad“Wigan currently has 18 publicly available EV charging points with 53 connectors. The delivery and operation of Greater Manchester’s publicly funded Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure is co-ordinated by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and TfGM own and operate 20 charge points at 9 locations within Wigan on the Be.EV network.
“The Council have adopted the Greater Manchester Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Strategy which provides a clear vision, objectives and strategic principles to inform a programme of works for the deployment of public charging infrastructure across the city region. The ambition is to have 3,000 publicly available electric vehicle charge points across Greater Manchester by 2025.
“Working alongside other Greater Manchester authorities and TfGM, we are committed to expanding the public network even further and as part of a collaborative bid we will be applying for grant funding from OZEV to expand the Be.EV network in Wigan and across Greater Manchester.
“Residents are invited to help us to decide where to put new chargers using the map available at https://electrictravel.tfgm.com/greater-manchesters-ev-strategy/”