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A £4m scheme that will see ‘filling stations’ for electric cars built in Newcastle and Sunderland city centres has been announced.

The city centre stations on Wellington Street in Newcastle - close to St James’ Park - and West Wear Street in Sunderland, are in prominent locations and will allow electric vehicles to be charged up faster than they could be at home.

Layouts for the two stations are now being finalised and planning applications will be submitted in the coming weeks after the North East Combined Authority and Newcastle University won funding from a number of sources.

The North East is seen as a leader in the use of electric vehicles and has around 10% of the EVs currently on the roads in the UK.

Nissan’s Sunderland plant produces the all-electric Leaf and a number of other companies in the region are also leaders in the electric vehicle industry.

Helen Golightly, executive director of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “The number of EVs continues to grow and the number of charging points continues to grow. With more charging points, there’s more options for motorists instead of just plugging in at home.

“We are all familiar with what filling stations look like and these two are no different, except of course that they are for electric vehicles only.

“The support NECA and others are receiving from the ERDF and the Government is fundamental to seeing this long-term shift away from petrol and diesel. More plug-in points means more confidence for drivers to adopt cleaner and greener vehicles.”

The North East already has 300 charging points and the Newcastle filling station will feed into research being done at Newcastle University.

Prof Phil Blythe, professor of transport at the university, said: “This is a unique facility, providing a number of rapid charges for the region’s electric vehicles users and which is also monitoring and analysing the demand for electricity that will help us understand the impact on the electricity grid of increasing numbers of electric vehicles in the North East.

“With the Government currently preparing their ‘Road to Zero’ strategy that will provide the road map of how to get to the stated objective that by 2040 all new cars purchased should be ultra-low emissions, this facility is hugely valuable in helping us gauge what infrastructure is required by current users and potential future users of electric vehicles.”

EV drivers will not need any subscription or membership to use the stations as they can use standard card technology or an app developed by operator Fastned for payments.

Funding from the scheme has come from the European Regional Development Fund, the UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure and Cities project and Department for Transport’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles.