MORE than a quarter of the city’s electric vehicle charging points are currently broken - and one of them has not been working for at least a year.

Resident Alasdair McIntosh said it is “really frustrating” to see the council claiming there are lots of charging points in the city when so many of them are broken.

There are 40 charging locations in the city and the council confirmed 14 of them are out of action.

Mr McIntosh said: “It’s really frustrating that the council keep on giving the answer that they have got lots of electric vehicle points planned and they are not even maintaining the ones they already have. It’s worse to have one that’s broken - if you can’t rely on them you have to plan a totally different journey.”

The council confirmed the rapid chargers at Nunnery Lane have been broken for 12 months and that a builder reversed into and broke the four points in Bootham Row Car Park.

Green councillor Andy D’Agorne said: “This is a shocking state of affairs, for an administration that claims to be tackling poor air quality through the promotion of electric vehicles and where it has just removed the Respark permit discount for any low emission vehicle that isn’t electric.”

But Cllr Stuart Rawlings, deputy leader of the Conservative group, said: “As an electric car owner I appreciate how frustrating it is when York’s charging points are either out of action or locked off all day by people taking advantage of the free parking offer. That’s why the Conservatives have committed to the installation of charging hubs and investing in our current network to ensure its fit for purpose.”

Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Waller said he is working with council officers to get the charging points fixed quickly.

He added that he wants electric car owners to have confidence using their vehicles in York and said: “It is disappointing to see this when there has been a push to get more charging points across the city for the future, and so this situation needs to be addressed immediately.”

City of York Council declined to comment but confirmed that the charging points at Union Terrace, Monks Cross Park&Ride and York University Sports Village are also out of action.