Maldon lags behind neighbouring districts in the number of public electric vehicle charging points it has for motorists.

The district saw a 50 per cent increase last year but that was only from 12 to 18, including three rapid chargers.

That compares to 75 public charging points in Colchester and 54 in Chelmsford.

The Braintree district leads the way with 91 charging points - up 12 from last year.

It had a head start when Gridserve opened the world's first Electric Forecourt, capable of charging up to 36 vehicles at a time off the A131 at Great Notley in December 2020.

It can provide enough charge for a vehicle to cover 200 miles in just 20 minutes.

Across the UK, there were nearly 49,220 publicly available chargers as of October – a 42 per cent jump from 2022. Of them, 8,908 were rapid chargers.

London has the most EV chargers with 193 per 100,000 people.

In the East of England, there were 52 chargers per 100,000 people.

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

Car manufacturer Vauxhall says more must be done to meet the rising demand for electric cars.

Managing director James Taylor said: "It’s a good signal, but we’re still at the beginning of the journey.

"We need to up the pace if we’re to make sure the 40 per cent of households without driveways are not left behind in the transition to electric vehicles and do more outside of London."

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "We’ve put more than £2 billion into helping people switch to electric vehicles, and in October one in four new cars bought came with a plug."

They added: "The number of public charge points has increased by 42 per cent since this time last year, and we've allocated £381million across every area in England to deliver tens of thousands more local chargers – particularly helping drivers without access to off-street parking."