Hi-tech charging points for electric cars are a step closer to being installed across West Yorkshire.

The £475,000 scheme by transport authority Metro will see 14 charging points placed across the county, with Bradford due to get two of them.

They are expected to be placed at the Shell petrol station at Bradford’s Staygate roundabout off the M606 and at the Shell petrol station in Hardings Road, Keighley.

There are also likely to be other charge points installed along the M62 motorway.

Detailed site investigations have now started and Metro is talking to landowners and the network operator to find out how much it will cost to install charge points at each site and how much power will be required.

The chargers themselves would be ‘rapid’ points, which take only 30 minutes to charge a vehicle.

These were deemed preferable to the ‘slow’ points, which use a standard 13 amp supply, and can take up to eight hours for a full charge.

Metro’s Bradford spokesman, Councillor Imran Khan, said to start off with, each site would get one charging point, but it was hoped that these would be added to over time.

He said the charge points, once installed, should encourage people to take up the greener vehicles by alleviating the worry that they might run out of power during a long journey.

He said: “The cost of petrol is going through the roof as it is, and we are hoping more and more people will come on to these cars. It has the knock-on effect of being environmentally friendly as well.”

Coun Khan said the details about how people would pay for the power they used were yet to be decided, but it was likely to involve a machine where people paid by credit or debit card.

Transport bosses successfully applied for a £345,000 grant towards the project from the Government's Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). Metro then put forward £125,000 of its own money.

The cash has to be spent by the end of March 2015, and a new report says the project is on schedule to be completed by then.

The report will be discussed by Metro’s Bradford Passenger Consultative Committee on Monday.