Four new electric vehicle charging points are being installed in Bridport town centre.

The new charging points will be installed in the Rope Walks car park as part of Dorset Council's Charging Ahead Programme, which aims to improve the electric vehicle (EV) charging access points across the county.

Work began on installing the charge points on Monday, November 18, and will take several weeks to complete but the car park will remain open.

A spokesperson for Bridport Town Council said: "These chargers and the small sub-station required will be in the northwest corner of the car park adjacent to the access road.

"The work is planned to start November 18 and will take 2-3 weeks, although, the installers may need to return after this to make the grid connection.

"The car park will remain open during the construction phase.

"There could be some minor disruption to traffic accessing the car park when the site is connected to the main electricity distribution network as the cable needs to cross the road.

"The cable connection should only take a couple of days with the road kept open through careful traffic management.

"The chargers will be operated by Mer who are also meeting all the associated costs for the chargers."

The news comes after Dorset Council announced it was helping to install 11 new charge points across the county. as part of its project to get 80 per cent of Dorset households within a 10-minute walk of a public charge point by 2030.

Currently, car parks in Bridport that have electric charge points are: Plottinghams, East Street, South Street and at the Bridport Leisure Centre's car park.

There are also charging points at West Bay Road car park in West Bay and at Chideock car park.

Lyme Regis will also see new charge points installed at one of its car parks by the end of the year.

Once complete, the addition of the fast and rapid chargers will bring the total number of public charging points in the county to just under 300.

Funding for the new chargers comes from a mix of sources, including government grants, private investment and local developer contributions.