MORE than £560,000 in government funding is to be provided to boost the number of charging points for electric cars in Cumbria, the Deputy Prime Minister announced today.

Nick Clegg pledged to invest more than £9 million across the country as he launched a joint campaign with car manufacturers to promote the benefits of ultra low emission vehicles.

Under the plans, Cumbria County Council will receive £562,500 for new charging points. Northern Rail, which runs rail services across the North of England, has also been allocated £322,500 to install charging points in train station car parks.

Electric car owners do not have to pay car tax or congestion charges and many chargepoints are free to use. The cars cost from just 2p a mile, which means a family that drives an electric vehicle 10,000 miles in a year would save around £1,000 on fuel costs each year.

There are already more charging points than filling stations in London, but to make driving an electric car possible for everyone, the £9 million funding will be used to create hundreds more charging points across the country, including 140 new rapid chargepoints which can charge an electric car in less than half an hour.

Mr Clegg said: “Electric cars are one of the most promising of our green industries and we want to secure the UK’s position as a global leader in both the production and adoption of these vehicles.

“The extremely low running costs of electric cars help drivers save money and we are allocating more than £9 million to boost chargepoints across the country to help drivers to go green. “This means we can lower UK emissions and create high-tech engineering and manufacturing jobs to boost our economy.”

More information on the Go Ultra Low campaign is available at www.GoUltraLow.com.