EV drivers offered new kerbside charging hack

It is being hailed as the simple cost-effective solution to one of the major issues holding back electric vehicle take-up in the UK.

How to quickly and easily charge up your car if you can’t park in a driveway outside your home has been a headache for owners and the industry, which has to meet a 2030 deadline to phase out new petrol and diesel cars.

If you own an electric vehicle but do not have off-street parking, you are faced with a dilemma.

You could charge your car at a public charging point – but it is hardly convenient, and significantly more expensive than charging at home. According to research from the RAC in November, drivers using public charge points can end up paying ten times more than charging off-peak at home.

But several companies are now marketing a solution that they believe to be a game-changing hack – the installation of closable metal channels, or gullies, across pavements in which a car owner can safely lay a cable from their home and cheaply charge a vehicle overnight.

Over Christmas the Department for Transport published new guidance to help councils facilitate this “cross-pavement” charging for residents who can only park on the street.  

BBC Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden is backing one of the companies saying: “The best inventions solve widespread problems with simple and cost-effective solutions and Kerbo Charge does just that!”

But critics argue it could spark neighbourhood parking wars if residents end up battling over kerbside spaces which they now believe “belong” to them because they paid for the cable channels and went through the trouble of applying for planning permission.

On-street parking problem

According to the English Housing Survey (EHS), approximately eight million households in England do not have access to off-street parking, such as a drive, garage or residential car park.

Given the higher cost of charging publicly, it is unsurprising that many of these households are yet to make the plunge by buying an EV.

But according to the EHS, of the eight million households without off-street parking, almost four million (16 per cent) have access to “adequate on-street parking”, defined in the survey as “street parking generally being available outside or adjacent to the house or block of flats where the surveyed flat is located, and the road is sufficiently wide to allow easy passage of traffic”.

Some EV-owners living in these properties currently carry out home-charging by trailling cables to their cars across the pavement.

However, this can create a trip hazard, and according to the DfT it may amount to a breach of the Highways Act.

The policy fix being championed by the DfT are “cross-pavement solutions”, where a piece of infrastructure is installed to allow an EV to be safely connected to a domestic chargepoint.

This can take a couple of different forms. Currently, the most popular variant is to embed a channel or gully into the pavement.

In 2024, carmakers sold a record number of EVs, with the vehicles accounting for 19.6 per cent of new cars sold in the UK, up from 16.5 per cent a year earlier.

However, Britain still lags far behind global leaders like Norway, where electric cars made up nine out of 10 new vehicles sold last year.

And with Labour reinstating plans originally introduced by Boris Johnson to phase-out new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, the task facing the Government to meet its target is immense.

A major obstacle to ramping up sales is anxiety over charging.

Concerns about the patchiness of the public charging network are well-reported. According to the Government, there are 73,334 public devices in the UK, but the Government has set a target of reaching 300,000 by 2030.

Achieving that target was not helped by the announcement from BT this week that it is abandoning a scheme to turn its green street cabinets into public charging points.

The company promised in January 2024 that 60,000 of the metal cases, which usually house phone and broadband cables, would be repurposed. It ended up only converting one, in East Lothian.

Alternatively, a permanent cable is laid below a pavement linking the domestic chargepoint to a piece of kit connecting it to the car, such as a removeable bollard.

Decisions about whether to allow this kind of cross-pavement charging rests with councils. But while some local authorities have trialled the channels, their use remains limited.

However, that may be about to change, with the DfT launching new guidance at the end of last year aimed at helping councils press forward with cross-pavement charging.

Ian Mach is the director of Charge Gully – a company which works with councils to install covered, lockable channels which allow people without a driveway to charge their EVs.

To date, Charge Gully has six live or confirmed trials with local authorities, including Lancashire County Council.

However, Mach says that until now, councils have been wary about embracing cross-pavement charging. “It is a nascent technology and, so far, a lot of local authorities didn’t feel like they should or they could move forward without some indication of support from the government,” he told The i Paper.

Gully boom

The publication of the guidance could now create a boom in the installation of cross-pavement charging infrastructure, he believes.

The DfT’s guidance recommends different models to councils, but they generally involve residents paying a one-off fee or ongoing subscription to cover the installation of a channel and its maintenance. If at some point the channel is no longer wanted, it can be removed and the pavement returned to its previous state.

Mach claims the channels have gone down a storm with EV drivers participating in the trials. “They love it. For the cost reason, the easiness to charge on the doorstep,” he said.

He argues the gullies also provide peace of mind to EV-owners without driveways who are currently trailling wires across pavements or even “hanging cables from lampposts” so they can fill-up at home.

“People who do that are exposing them to third party liability if somebody trips on it,” he says. “For the residents it’s a big risk.”

As well as decluttering pavements and providing drivers with cheaper, convenient charging, the DfT argues cross-pavement solutions can help protect green oases in towns and cities.

“In some areas EV users without off-street parking have been converting their front gardens into driveways,” its guidance states. “The installation of cross-pavement solutions can prevent the need for doing so, protecting urban green spaces.”

Parking strife

However, not everyone is on-board with the idea. Caroline Russell, the leader of the Green Party group in the London Assembly, has voiced concerns about the proliferation of cross-pavement, on street EV charging.

For Russell, because money changes hands to install the channels, residents may end up thinking that a parking space “belongs” to them. The potential for friction with neighbours who might want to use the space themselves is obvious.

Writing on the Blue Sky social media platform recently, she condemned the “creeping privatisation of the public realm”.

“Street space is a valuable asset in a healthy, inclusive city and should not be handed over lightly to individual householders or to commercial companies,” she said.

“Allowing people to run a channel across the pavement to charge a car with their own electricity supply creates ownership expectations about use of the kerbside that feel extremely unhelpful.

“Likewise if commercial companies start installing chargers that look like petrol pumps we are giving over precious pavement and kerbside space that could take a tree or just be used by people walking or wheeling on their local trips.

“Public policy should prioritise healthy streets where children, older and disabled people can get around safely and conveniently for everyday trips without feeling forced to use a car.”

She added: “Surely in urban areas if any kerbside charging happens that should be via the local authority through rapid chargers or lamp columns where there is no expectation of guaranteed parking and where people know they need to move their car once charged.”

Predictions about conflict appear plausible. In places like Walsall, plans for on-street EV charge points have already had to be watered down because of concerns from residents about parking wars.

However, not everyone in the Green Party is so sceptical. Siân Berry, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, told The i Paper that it is one of the “creative, practical solutions” which the country will have to embrace on its journey to an EV future.

She is equally clear that it is not the only thing holding EV ownership back. “What we’ve got is an absolute postcode lottery of whether or not there’s a decent charging network in your area,” she said. “Government ought to get a better grip on this.

Even cross-pavement charging evangelists recognise that conflict over parking is a potential sticking-point. “It is an issue that is well know,” said Mach. “It is one of the big considerations for [installing] channels.

“It is true that in more challenging areas of cities where parking is already on the stress, it may not be the solution.

However, he believes that in most situations the issue is manageable. Partly, it is about setting expectations from the outset: “When the channel is given to residents a user agreement is put in place with them and that clearly states that they’re not entitled to reserve the parking spaces outside the house, they’re not allowed to put cones in it.

“It is clear up front… a neighbour would have all the rights to challenge a resident who decided to do that.”

Even if the space outside the EV owner’s house is being occupied by another car, Mach says it is possible to run the cable a short distance along the gutter, so you can charge-up a “space or two down”. And in any case, an EV will generally require charging once or twice a week, so rotating the use of a parking space through the week need not be a disaster.

“We already see people talking on WhatsApp groups, making groups with neighbours, and coordinating space between them,” he said.

“As we move towards the EV future where everybody will eventually get an EV it’s going to be in the interest of everyone, actually, to be able to park in front of the house.”