THE number of public electric vehicle charging points in the Borders has increased over the past year, new figures show.

Statistics from the Department for Transport show there were 82 publicly-available devices in the region as at October, including 14 rapid chargers.

Overall, it is up from 64 charging devices in October of 2022.

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Across the UK, there were nearly 49,220 publicly-available chargers as at October – a 42 per cent jump from 2022. 

Of them, 8,908 were rapid chargers.

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The figures also show on-street devices for homes without driveways have increased by 69 per cent in the last 12 months, with 4,094 new installations recorded in the last quarter.

The availability of chargers varied across the UK, with the highest in London where there were 193 chargers per 100,000 people. 

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On the other end of the scale, Northern Ireland had just 23 per 100,000 people.
In Scotland, there were 77 electric vehicle chargers per 100,000 people.