Electric car charging points could be installed in Portsmouth supermarket car parks

At a meeting yesterday the council's transportation boss, Councillor Lynne Stagg, agreed to an extension for three charging points in the city used to gather data until January 2021.

The information will then shape the number and location of more points in the future, including rapid charging points which only take a few hours to full power a vehicle.

Speaking at the meeting Cllr Stagg said: 'One of the things I am very keen on is supermarket car parks having rapid car charging. People go there and happily spend two or three hours shopping and all the while they are charging up their cars.

'They could also be used by taxis and hackney carriages.'

It is thought a further 79 on-street charge points - which take up to nine hours to charge a car - could also be installed after funding of around £230,000 was awarded by the government.

This would add to the 36 that were introduced in residential streets last year.

Hayley Chivers, the council's strategic transport planner, said: 'We hope to bid for more funding in the future.'

Labour spokesman for transport, Cllr Graham Heaney, added: 'I welcome this, it seems to be working really successfully.'

The three charging points can be found in the Isambard Brunel multi-storey car park in the city centre, the Seafront Esplanade car park and the Clarence Pier car park.

They showed that from March 2018 to the end of September 2019, a total of 965 charges took place.

The number of electric cars in Portsmouth has increased to from 1,033 in 2015 to 2,025 in 2019.