Monday 17 June 2019 4:28 pm

Square Mile to get electric charging hub by end of year as part of Sadiq Khan’s EV push

TfL’s current target is to have delivered 225 rapid charge points by the end of the year

The Square Mile is to get a new electric charging hub by the end of this year as part of Sadiq Khan’s push to expand London’s electric vehicle infrastructure.

The London mayor has today set out plans to deliver five flagship charging points over the next few years, with the first one installed in the City by the end of this year.

The roll-out follows Khan’s electric vehicle taskforce, which is made up of about 140 public and private sector bodies and was launched last year.

The mayor, who has praised the protests of climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion, said London needed to “reject the fossil fuels of the past and embrace an electric revolution in London’s transport”.

Launching the plan, Khan said: “London’s air is so dirty and polluted that it amounts to nothing less than a serious public health crisis. It breaches legal limits and blights the lives of Londoners, resulting in thousands of premature deaths every year. We are also facing a climate emergency that threatens the long-term security and wellbeing of every Londoner.

“I want London to lead the world in this ambition, with all new cars and vans on London roads to meeting these standards by 2030, not 2040 as the government is proposing.”

There are currently more than 20,000 electric vehicles on London’s roads, 1,700 electric taxis and over 2,400 public chargers.

However, critics claim that London lags behind other European cities.

Caroline Pidgeon, deputy chair of the London Assembly’s transport committee, said London’s electric bus fleet trailed behind many other cities.

“We cannot escape the fact that on the issue of electric buses London is lagging behind many other cities,” she said. “As a proportion of London’s overall bus network the number electric buses remains a very small fraction.

“Sadly the mayor has not set out any policies over how to speed up the introduction of electric buses that London so desperately needs.”

Pidgeon said it was “misleading” for the mayor to claim that London had the “largest fleet of double electric buses in Europe”.

“Such a claim is misleading in the extreme – as Dublin is the only other city in western Europe to have any significant number of double decker buses of any sort,” she said.