A motor insurance company says York is the fourth-most friendly city in the country for electric vehicles.

The research, published by Independent Advisor Car Insurance, comes as central Government has awarded City of York Council £746,000 to expand the installation of electric charging points.

The insurance company analysed a range of data across 88 UK towns and cities looking at factors that may influence drivers when switching to EVs, such as free and paid EV charger availability, EV registrations and charging times across towns and cities in the UK.

It found Dudley in the West Midlands is the best town to switch to an EV with 98% of charging points for free and one of the fastest charging time in the UK.

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York came fourth overall, largely due to its “excellent charger availability.”

The city has 818 people per charger, which also deliver a healthy power output of 41kwh, giving a charging time of 3 hours 38 minutes, with 89 per cent of the charging units being free.

Despite having the highest number of EV charging points in the country, 79% of EV chargers in London require payment, while in Liverpool, this figure is as high as 81%.

Overall, Blackpool is the town most struggling to encourage the public to change to electric, with it having just 14 charging points available, equating to more than 17,000 residents per charger.

York Press: York is the fourth-most electric vehicle friendly town or city in the country, according to

Huddersfield placed second worst due to it just having a fifth of its chargers being free, the third worst in the country, beaten only by Hastings (11 per cent) and Liverpool (19 per cent).

Across the 88 towns and cities analysed, on average 70% of charging points are free.

James Gilchrist, Director of Transport, Environment and Planning at City of York Council, said: “We are delighted that York has been recognised as one of the leading EV cities. In 2020 we were one of the first councils to publish a strategy for public EV charging and this head start has allowed York to deliver award winning facilities through the Council owned York EV Network and attract multiple commercial providers.

“This approach provides a choice of providers whilst enabling a full range of facilities from Fast to Ultra Rapid to be deployed quicker than would otherwise be possible for the commercial market.

“Through the York EV Network, the Council has installed 103 new chargers over the past 3 years and we expect the total number of chargers to continue to rise over the long term as we have more charging sites planned and expect further developments from commercial networks.”

Earlier this month, central government announced payments to 44 further councils from its £381 million LEVI fund, which will deliver thousands of additional charge points across England. York will receive £746,000.