Electric vehicle charging points are being switched on in some of North Yorkshire’s popular coastal destinations to help encourage the use of environmentally friendly transport.

North Yorkshire Council is installing 96 electric vehicle charging points across the former Scarborough borough in 18 car parks, offering residents and visitors convenient locations to recharge their batteries.

The council partnered with Connected Kerb Ltd to apply for funding to pay for the chargers from the On-Street Residential Charge Point Scheme from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) with support from the Energy Saving Trust.

It received £260,000 to provide the chargers in Scarborough, Whitby, Filey and some of the area’s villages, Robin Hood’s Bay, Runswick Bay and Staithes.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for highways and transport, Cllr Keane Duncan, said: “This is another massive step in delivering on our ambitious plans to increase the amount of charging points across the county.

“We know that the geography of our county, with its many rural communities, presents challenges when it comes to electric vehicles, but we are exploring every avenue for funding open to us and making great progress towards our targets.

“We are working hard to ensure North Yorkshire, including the coast, does not fall behind as more people make the switch to electric vehicles.”

The charging points are a mixture of seven kilowatt and 22 kilowatt to provide flexibility in terms of capacity and therefore speed of charging.

Chris Pateman-Jones, chief executive officer of Connected Kerb, said: “Bringing sustainable mobility to everyone in northern areas of the UK is essential if the country is to achieve its net zero aspirations.

“We are really pleased to be working with North Yorkshire Council to install reliable, affordable, and sustainable charging infrastructure that will support residents with no access to off-street parking make the switch to electric vehicles while also improving local air quality.”

The project forms part of North Yorkshire Council’s commitment to provide more charging points across the county to meet growing demand and to meet the aim to be carbon neutral by 2030.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for climate change, Cllr Greg White, said: “The roll-out of electric vehicle charging points is one of our key priorities in order to meet our ambitious climate change goals.

“We know that large parts of North Yorkshire are waiting for more charging points, and it is great to see that some of our most popular destinations on the stunning North Yorkshire coast can now cater for residents and visitors who want to make the switch to electric.”

Earlier this year, the council’s executive agreed a new county-wide strategy for electric charging points. The strategy shows there are almost 4,000 electric vehicles registered in North Yorkshire but just 225 publicly available charge points.

It is forecast that 3,161 charge points need to be delivered by 2030, just under half of these need to be funded by the public sector at a cost of approximately £10.3 million. It is expected that at least half of the publicly funded chargers (724) will need to be delivered by 2025 to meet demand.

The council has secured £3.237 million in funding from the national Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) pilot scheme to install 150 charging points across the county.

They will be installed alongside battery storage units, charged by solar panels. The technology will be sympathetic to the rural landscape and will see residential charge points in both on-street locations and larger charging hubs.

A further bid has been made for an additional £4.88 million of funding for charging points and an announcement is expected later this year.

More than 300 are in the process of being switched on or are planned for installation across the county.