MORE than 1,000 public charge points for electric vehicles have been added to the South West’s network since April last year, the government has announced.

This brings the overall total to well over 5,000 chargers.

Commenting on the stats, Future of Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood, said: ‘We want to make sure that drivers in the South West are always close to an electric vehicle charging device.

‘That’s’ why it’s great to see the number of public charging devices in the region growing by 30 percent since April last year, taking us to more than 5,500 public charging devices in the South West.’

The Government is investing £200m to help rollout rapid chargepoints all over the country, on top of £381m through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund to roll out tens of thousands of on-street chargers.