Two new public charging points in Douglas will soon be available to electric vehicle owners.

They are in the process of being installed at the sea terminal and should be available soon.

It will take the total number installed in council-run car parks to 10. Green Party member Falk Horning chairs the authority’s Environmental Services Committee.

He says most of the infrastructure is the responsibility of central government but added more charging points will be needed as demand grows.

’At the moment we have multiple points installed in Douglas,’ Mr Horning said.

’There are four in Chester Street car park, two at the NSC, we have two at the MUA which is just outside of Douglas, and now we have two outside the Sea Terminal’.

There are also a number of privately-installed charging points for businesses.

He continued: ’The council’s remit basically is concentrated on the off-street car parks that the council controls; which would be Shaw’s Brow and the Bottleneck.

’Apart from that we don’t really have control over such things they are very much between the national government departments, which would be the DoI and MUA.’ Asked what number of points would be sufficient to meet the needs of the amount of electric vehicles expected to be in the island in the next few years, he said: ’From the council’s perspective I think if you’re just talking about the car parks, it’s about following the demand really - and of course looking at how many points we can implement with the infrastructure present.’

Government predicts that there will be 3,000 electric vehicles on Manx roads by 2025.