No planning permission needed for cross-pavement EV chargers: what changes in England

What changed today

The Department for Transport announced on 21 October 2026 that people no longer need planning permission to install cross-pavement chargers, the set-ups that run a cable from a home, under the pavement, to a car parked on the street. The law behind it is the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026: made on 25 September, laid before Parliament on 30 September, and in force from today.

The order defines a cross-pavement solution as a pavement-embedded cable channel that lets a charging cable cross the pavement safely from a home to a parked car. Installing, altering or replacing one is now permitted development, which means no planning application, when it is done by the highway authority, on its behalf or with its authorisation. In two-tier areas that is usually the county council; elsewhere it is the single council for the area.

The government's own figure for what this saves is up to £300 on installation. It ties the saving to no longer needing planning permission and does not say how it reached the figure; the order does not change the price of the channel or the charger.

What a channel still needs

The council is still the gate. A channel counts as permitted development only if the highway authority installs it, has it installed or authorises it, so whether you can have one at all is still the council's decision, and not every council allows them. Street-works permission can still apply when the pavement is dug up.

The new right does not apply if the channel would be within a conservation area, within the curtilage of a listed building or within a scheduled monument. In those places the new right does not apply, so planning permission is needed, on top of the council's consent, unless the council has a local development order.

The order also sets a condition for the end of a channel's life: when it is no longer needed, it has to be removed as soon as reasonably practicable and the pavement put back as it was.

The charger on your wall

The same order widens the existing permitted development right for wall-mounted chargers (and, on similar terms, chargers on a post). Until today it covered a charger within an area lawfully used for off-street parking. It now also covers one elsewhere within the curtilage of a house or block of flats, which is what a home without a driveway needs.

There are limits. No wall charger under this right can sit more than 1.6 metres above the ground, and, as before, none can go within the curtilage of a listed building or on a scheduled monument. On the new no-driveway route, there can be only one charger at the house or block, and none in a conservation area. Where the wall meets the pavement directly, the charger can stick out no more than 20 centimetres and must leave at least 1.5 metres of pavement to the kerb. And whenever there is a pavement between the charger and the car, the cable has to cross it through an authorised channel: a cable trailed across the pavement does not meet the condition. The 1.6-metre and pavement-edge limits also apply to chargers by a driveway; work the old rules allowed can still go ahead until the end of 20 October 2027.

The order's definition of a charger excludes an ordinary three-pin plug and socket, so the right covers a dedicated charge point, not an outdoor socket.

What it saves, in the government's figures

The Department for Transport's announcement gives three figures, all its own: up to £300 saved on installation, home charging for as little as 2p a mile, and, in the words of the minister Simon Lightwood, savings of up to £1,750 on running costs for residents without off-street parking. The department does not publish how it worked out the 2p or the £1,750 in the announcement, and neither is a figure we have checked.

The grant has not changed today. The government's chargepoint grant for households with on-street parking pays 75 per cent of the cost of buying and installing the charger, up to £500, through an installer authorised by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles, and is open until 31 March 2027. It needs a permanent channel with the highway authority's consent; temporary cable covers or mats do not count. Our home EV charger guide sets out who qualifies and what a charger costs, and EV or diesel works through the running costs.

What hasn't changed

A channel does not reserve the space outside your house. If someone else is parked there, the cable cannot reach your car.

The change applies in England only. Planning is devolved, so the rules in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are set separately and this change does not apply there.

Renters and leaseholders still need the landlord's or freeholder's agreement to fit a charger to the building, as before today.

Two consultations, open until 16 December

Alongside the order, the government has opened two consultations, both closing on 16 December 2026. One asks about a clearer route for tenants and leaseholders to get a charge point installed, including guidance for landlords and whether to make it harder for landlords and freeholders to refuse. The other asks about changing building regulations so that charge points go into new and refurbished covered car parks.

The department also says the same planning changes make it quicker and cheaper for operators to put in larger public charging hubs.