char.gy Claims UK Lead in On-Street Charging as LEVI Rollout Gains Pace

On-street charging specialist char.gy says it has pulled ahead of rivals in delivering Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) charge points, with 674 live sockets now operating across Brighton & Hove and Reading. The company based its claim on its own review of Zapmap data, which tracks installations by council area but cannot pinpoint individual operators, so the ranking should be read with that caveat in mind.

The live figure is still modest against the pipeline. char.gy has been awarded 11 LEVI projects in total, together covering more than 60,000 planned sockets, yet only four of those contracts have actually been signed. Those four serve Reading, Brighton & Hove, West Northamptonshire, and Devon & Torbay, and the latter two have no live charge points to show yet. A further seven councils, including Central Bedfordshire and the Isle of Wight, are working towards signature, which would extend the company’s footprint well beyond its southern heartland.

The wider context is a kerbside charging map that remains lopsided. More than 70% of the on-street chargers installed in the UK by the end of 2025 were concentrated in London, while separate Vauxhall research found that half of British councils had yet to offer any on-street charging at all. With roughly 40% of drivers lacking access to off-street parking, that gap is a practical barrier for households that cannot charge at home. LEVI funding was designed to address exactly this imbalance, and how quickly operators like char.gy convert awards into working hardware will be a test of whether the money is effective.

On the company’s broader network, char.gy says it has now surpassed 6,000 charge points, adding 1,000 since May, and has replaced 955 older units in Richmond and Wandsworth. Backing comes from the Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund and the National Wealth Fund. Chief Executive John Lewis said councils are choosing char.gy because the company turns LEVI projects into functioning charge points at pace and keeps them running, adding that the seven councils moving towards signature should sustain that momentum. The next milestone to watch is how many of those unsigned projects translate into live sockets in the coming months.