Shake-up will help UK motorists without driveways to charge EVs

Households without off-street parking could soon be able to charge their electric vehicles from home under new government plans to help households cut their need for expensive fossil fuels.

The government has promised to pass legislation this summer that will allow motorists to run power cables through a charging “gully” built into the pavement outside their home without the need for planning permission.

This means that before the end of this year, EV owners who are not able to fit their own car chargers at home will be able to charge up from the power connection indoors.

Motorists are not allowed to string charging cables across the pavement from their home but almost half of councils across the UK allow cross-pavement charging if you embed the cable in a gully. However, this still requires permission from the council.

Charging at home is usually much cheaper than using public car charge points, meaning more motorists may be willing to trade in their petrol and diesel cars for an electric alternative if they know they can access cheaper electricity more easily.

This is partly because public charging has a VAT rate of 20% while home energy includes VAT at 5%. ChargeUK, the trade body for the charging industry, said equalising VAT would help ensure that motorists who cannot charge at home even after the planning changes would not be unfairly penalised.

The legislation is part of a string of measures to help protect households from the soaring cost of energy since the Middle East war disrupted supplies of crude, gas and fuels from the Gulf.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said the “overwhelming lesson of this crisis is we need to go faster” on the government’s plans to reduce the UK’s reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets.

“Because every solar panel we put up, every wind turbine we build, every heat pump we install, every EV on the road makes our country more secure,” he told the Good Growth Foundation’s National Growth Debate on Tuesday.

The government has also promised to make it easier to install solar panels and heat pumps.

This summer it will consult on changes to permitted development rights to make it easier to install air source heat pumps, particularly in flats, and on plans for low-income households to benefit from plug-in solar through the Warm Homes Plan.

Demand for solar panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps has leapt since the war began as households brace for a sharp increase in monthly energy bills when the next energy price cap takes effect in the summer.

Octopus Energy, the country’s biggest energy supplier, said its heat pump orders had more than doubled in March compared with February, while sales of solar power systems were up by almost 80%.

The supplier said new leases of electric vehicles rose by more than 85% over the same period. In a boost to EV sales, the price of battery electric cars has fallen below petrol cars in the UK for the first time, according to the car sales website Autotrader.