Hundreds more electric car charging points have gone live across Sussex over the past year, according to the Department for Transport (DfT).
Official figures recorded 432 publicly available electric vehicle (EV) charging devices in Brighton and Hove last month, including 17 rapid chargers.
This was an increase of 79 – or 22 per cent – on the 353 EV chargers recorded by the DfT in October last year.
In the south east, outside London, only Milton Keynes had a higher number, with 515 EV chargers. Southampton had 116, Portsmouth 81 and Oxford 153.
The data showed that the entire county of East Sussex had 189, up from 158, while West Sussex had 455, up from 304, with just 40 in Adur and 59 in Worthing.
Britain as a whole had just over 49,000 public EV chargers by last month, up 42 on a year ago, with almost 9,000 rapid chargers.
The number of fast chargers available to the public in Brighton and Hove – just 17 – was well below average for a local authority area.
It means that fewer than 2 per cent of all fast chargers in the south east, outside London, were in Brighton and Hove.
Milton Keynes had 144 rapid EV chargers while Crawley had 19 and Oxford 35.
Brighton and Hove had more than 156 chargers available for every 100,000 people compared with 63 in the south east and 193 in London. The national average was just over 73 per 100,000.
But the rate for fast chargers – important for tourist and commuter destinations – stood at 6.2 per 100,000 compared with a south east average of 13.7 and a national average of 13.3.
Brighton and Hove City Council is increasingly requiring the installation of EV chargers when new homes and business premises are built.
The push comes as about a quarter of all new cars sold run on electricity.
East Sussex had 189 public EV chargers by last month, according to the DfT, with 45 fast chargers or blink chargers. West Sussex had 455, with 76 fast chargers.
The figures by district are
Adur 40 public chargers 4 public fast chargers
Arun 35 11
Brighton and Hove 432 17
Chichester 67 12
Crawley 74 19
Eastbourne 50 12
Hastings 35 14
Horsham 71 9
Lewes 51 2
Mid Sussex 109 12
Rother 19 8
Wealden 34 9
Worthing 59 9
