The 5,000th charge point was installed as part of Brighton & Hove City Council's ambitious plan to deploy around 6,000 kerbside charge points across the city — one of the largest on-street charging programmes in the UK, and currently the largest outside London. The rollout is transforming access to EV charging for the city's residents, the majority of whom rely on on-street parking.
Brighton & Hove is part of a broader picture of accelerating deployment across the UK. In Barnet, a close partnership with the council saw 300 charge points installed in just six weeks, part of a 500-strong rollout that thousands of local drivers are already using, showing just how quickly communities take to kerbside charging when it's done right.
Reading Borough Council has partnered with char.gy to install around 2,600 charge points across the borough, with at least 90 percent of households without off-street parking set to be within 100 metres of a public charger. On the Isle of Wight, over 1,500 new charge points are set to be installed, bringing reliable on-street charging to the Island for the first time at scale — ensuring that even communities beyond the mainland aren't left behind in the shift to electric.
Around 40 percent of UK homes have no off-street parking, and for many of those households, the absence of a convenient place to charge has been the single biggest barrier to going electric. char.gy's model addresses this directly — installing charge points at the kerbside using existing street furniture such as lamp columns, minimising disruption while maximising reach.
The entire char.gy network is powered by renewable electricity supplied through its partnership with EDF. The energy is backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates, which verify that the electricity supplied to the network is matched with power generated from renewable sources and fed into the UK grid. By combining accessible kerbside charging with renewable electricity provision, char.gy and EDF are helping ensure the transition to electric mobility delivers meaningful carbon reductions from drivers alongside improved access to charging.
“Reaching 5,000 charge points is a proud moment for char.gy, but what it really represents is thousands of households across the UK who can now seriously consider going electric” said John Lewis, CEO of char.gy. “The councils we work with, from Brighton to Barnet, Reading to the Isle of Wight, are making bold commitments to their residents, and we're proud to be the partner helping them deliver them. On-street charging has moved from the margins to the mainstream — and it's becoming an essential part of how the UK gets to net zero.”
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