One of the biggest barriers to the take up of electric cars by consumers is the availability of charge points. One third of households do not have off street parking, and so cannot charge at home, while any driver wanting to undertake a long journey will need to be confident of being able to charge enroute. To help drivers, charge points need to be readily available, reliable, and have consumer-friendly terms and conditions.
Anthony Browne led the campaign to accelerate the roll out of charge points, with a series of negotiations with charge point operators, car manufacturers, electricity companies, DNOs, Ofgem, motorway service area operators and local authorities, backed up by a range of public funding schemes to incentivise roll out. Liaising with industry, a full list of barriers to accelerating the roll out was identified, including planning permissions, connectivity to the grid, standardised application documentation, and approvals for undertaking works on pavements.
A large number of different measures were then taken to reduce those barriers where possible, leading to a rapid acceleration of installation of charge points. The number of public charge points doubled in two years.