England’s public charging network is a postcode lottery, with some councils checking every charger by the hour while others confess they have no idea whether theirs are working at all.

That is the picture painted by a Freedom of Information investigation from Close Brothers Motor Finance, which put questions to 17 English county councils and found everything from 97 per cent uptime in the best-run counties to a “data black hole” in Lancashire, West Sussex, Nottinghamshire and Essex, where authorities hold no fault or reliability data whatsoever.

The findings arrive at an awkward moment for the EV transition. More than half of drivers surveyed by the lender, 52 per cent, said they never use public charging points, with cost, availability and reliability all blamed for keeping them away.

At the top of the class sits Northumberland County Council, which monitors all 487 of its public chargers every hour through a digital management platform and reports 97 per cent uptime across its rapid network. Surrey County Council keeps a similarly close eye on its 411 charging sockets, holding downtime below 3 per cent.

Hampshire tells a very different story. The county council reported that 39 of its 157 public chargers, roughly a quarter of the network, were unavailable, with 27 of them deliberately switched off because of low utilisation. Leicestershire, meanwhile, confirmed that 10 of its 53 charging sockets have been permanently removed from service.

Most striking of all, four counties admitted they simply do not know how reliable their chargers are because the networks are run by private chargepoint operators. West Sussex County Council said the operational data belongs to Connected Kerb and is therefore not information the authority holds.

Commercial operators of rapid chargers are already required to report 99 per cent average uptime under the Public Charge Point Regulations, though EV Powered has previously revealed that 96 per cent of operators are missing those reliability targets. No equivalent consistency applies to how councils monitor and report on the infrastructure installed in their name.

The consumer research fleshes out why so many drivers stay away. Among motorists who rarely or never plug in publicly, 13 per cent said charging was too expensive or pricing was unclear, a familiar complaint given the cost of public charging has been climbing steadily. One in ten said chargers were often busy or unavailable, and 8 per cent branded them unreliable or frequently out of service. Safety worries persist too, cited by 17 per cent, including poorly lit locations (8 per cent) and unease about leaving a vehicle unattended (9 per cent).

John Cassidy, managing director at Close Brothers Motor Finance, said: “With ongoing debate around EV targets and the pace of the UK’s transition to electric vehicles, one thing remains constant: drivers need confidence in the charging network if they’re going to make the switch.

“Our findings show that confidence isn’t just about having more chargers on the map – it’s about knowing they’ll be working when you arrive. The fact that some councils can monitor faults in real time while others don’t even hold reliability data creates an inconsistent experience for motorists depending on where they live.

“If the UK is to accelerate EV adoption, improving reliability, transparency and accountability across the public charging network will be just as important as expanding its size.”

The lender is calling on the Government and councils to accelerate investment and introduce consistent standards for monitoring and reporting charger reliability, a plea that chimes with the Government’s own review into public charging costs, due to report this autumn.

Alongside the FOI findings, Close Brothers announced a multi-year partnership with charging specialist Pod, giving its 5,000-plus dealer partners access to commercial forecourt charging, while customers buying EVs through participating dealerships will be offered discounted home charging packages.