CheapEV is happy to give the Government credit when it makes a sensible decision, and its commitment to simplify planning for cross-pavement EV charging deserves praise. EV owners without driveways should have a fair chance to access cheap overnight electricity that lets them slash their motoring costs to the ridiculously cheap 2p per mile that overnight charging tariffs offer.
The proposed change in England removes the need for a separate planning application for qualifying installations, although council highways approval will remain. The Government’s September announcement says legislation still needs to be brought forward and will not be with us until next year, but that still allows households to start planning now.
However, I strongly advise using a specialist installer who can manage the council permissions, pavement channel and electrical work as one package, because these are an admin nightmare. It may sound like a lot, but I would also budget £2,000–£2,500 for a complete, straightforward installation. However, if you drive 10,000 miles a year and can charge at home for all those miles, reducing your energy cost from 17p per mile for petrol or public charging to around 2p would save £1,500 annually, giving you a payback of about 16–20 months.
However, there is one rather obvious problem that easier planning does not solve. Who gets to park beside the charger?
Imagine spending a couple of thousand pounds installing a charger and a channel through the pavement, only to arrive home and find your neighbour’s petrol car parked beside it when you need to charge for tomorrow’s journey. They need somewhere to park, and you have no legal right to this space, but I can see that’s where neighbourly disputes break out.
The Department for Transport guidance is unfortunately very clear that installing a cross-pavement charging solution gives you no ownership or priority over the space outside your house. A neighbour parking there legally does not have to move simply because you have installed a charger.
My advice is to consider potential parking issues before buying the hardware. For example, I would ask your installer to add the longest possible charging cable and place the pavement outlet so it sits between two parking spaces, where spaces are actually marked, as this will improve your chances of reaching the car from either position.
However, the longer cable must follow a safe, permitted route; it is not an invitation to trail cables along the pavement or to use ordinary extension leads. Check where the charging socket is located on your car, too, as a layout that works well for one model might be awkward for another.
I would also recommend a polite sign on your charger asking drivers to leave access when possible, which may make considerate neighbours hesitate before parking there, but to be clear, this is only a non-enforceable request, so don’t go around slashing tyres or getting angry when it is ignored.
And in some locations, these roadside chargers are just not going to work.
For example, in my old town of Brighton, finding any space on your own street always felt like a victory, and goodwill will not cut it. If you almost never get near your front door, installing a charger could be pointless, as better planning cannot create parking where it doesn’t exist.
The installation cost makes that assessment important. Kerbo Charge currently advertises its pavement channel from £999 including VAT, covering the survey, permissions and channel installation, while warning that local authority pricing may be higher. But sorry, I am sceptical about this claim, as most people I know who have done it have paid my estimate of £2,500.
As more neighbourhoods switch to EVs, there is also an opportunity to cooperate. Rather than treating each household’s charger as a private possession that others obstruct, why not agree to install several compatible chargers along the street and share them?
My preferred model would use chargers with suitable metering and a payment service that lets neighbours pay by credit or debit card for the electricity they actually use, irrespective of whose house the charger is connected to. The homeowner who funded the installation could set a price that covers electricity, maintenance and payment fees, with a margin for their investment. Drivers would have more charging options, and the person doing the work could make a profit.
Paid sharing already exists. Co Charger, for example, handles bookings and card payments for hosts, although its model bills by active charging time rather than directly reading a charger’s meter.
For illustration, buying eligible overnight electricity at 8p/kWh and selling a charging service at 20p/kWh leaves a 12p gross difference before costs. That could reward the homeowner while giving a neighbour substantially cheaper charging than many public alternatives.
That’s why this reform matters.
Octopus currently advertises eligible smart charging at 8p/kWh, giving a 2p cost per mile compared to rapid public charging that costs 19p per mile and petrol cars at 17p. Access to this cheap night-time domestic charging is crucial to making the move to an EV an economic no-brainer for all.
The Government deserves credit for giving more households a chance to access that 2p-a-mile opportunity. But making it work will require sensible positioning, realistic expectations about parking and, ideally, a conversation with the neighbours before the installer arrives.