What actually changed
The cable does not lie loose on the flags. It sits in a gully channel cut into the pavement, so the car at the kerb can be connected to a wall-mounted home chargepoint without a cable stretching across the walkway. Under the old rules, that channel often needed a planning application before work could start.
The change is not a blanket permission. Installations still need authorisation from the relevant highway authority, and street works permissions may apply on top. There are exclusions for certain protected sites and properties. Planning is devolved in the UK, so the new rights cover England only, not Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
The government first confirmed the plan in September and has now delivered it. It sits alongside a wider push to remove administrative barriers from home charging for people who do not have a driveway.
The £300 and the £25 million grant
The £300 figure is the government's estimate of what a household saves when the planning step disappears. It is money not spent on fees and paperwork, not a discount on the hardware. The gully itself, the chargepoint and the electrical work are still paid for by the household or, in some schemes, by the local authority.
That is where the £25 million Pavement Channels Grant comes in. Launched in 2025, it funds councils to install pavement channels for residents who park on the street. Before the rule change, a household could be asked for planning permission before it qualified for support, which slowed the whole process down. Whether your council has joined the programme is a separate question, and one worth asking before you order anything.
Cables, prams and wheelchairs
The trip hazard is the part of this story that matters most to anyone who walks a pavement with a pushchair or a shopping trolley. A cable across the pavement is an obstacle for a parent with two children in tow, and a genuine barrier for someone in a wheelchair or with a guide dog. A recessed channel removes it. That is a small piece of infrastructure with a wide effect on who can use the street safely.
For the household itself, the practical gain is different. Plugging in at home means the car is full every morning. No detour, no waiting at a rapid charger with tired children in the back.
Home charging against public charging
The government says home charging without a driveway could cost as little as 2p per mile. That number only works with a cheap overnight tariff, so here is the arithmetic we used. Take a family EV that does 3.5 miles per kWh. On an off-peak rate of 7p per kWh, one mile costs 2p. Over 8,000 miles a year, that is roughly £160.
Now the same car on public rapid charging at an illustrative 79p per kWh. One mile costs about 22.6p, and 8,000 miles comes to just under £1,810. The gap is around £1,650 a year. Our charging cost calculator lets you drop in your own tariff and mileage rather than borrowing mine.
The public network keeps improving, and in the UK the roaming arrangements at ultra-rapid hubs have been widening, as we reported when Source opened its UK ultra-rapid hubs to GreenFlux roaming. But no roaming deal makes a rapid charger as cheap as a home meter.
The drivers who rule an EV out
EVA England, the driver advocacy group, puts a number on why this matters. Its research found that 60 per cent of petrol and diesel drivers without off-street parking would never consider an electric car. Vicky Edmonds, the group's CEO, said the planning change could "make the difference between being able to afford an electric car and ruling one out altogether", and added that local authorities and landlords now have to make the solutions easy to access in practice.
That last point is the honest limit of the policy. A permitted development right does not install anything. It only removes one approval from a chain that still runs through the highway authority, the installer and, often, the council's own budget.
What to check before you book an installer
Ask your local highway authority what it requires for a channel in the pavement, and whether street works permission applies on your road. Check whether your council is part of the pavement channels grant programme. If you rent or lease, the decision is not yours alone. The government has opened consultations on charging access for tenants and leaseholders and on charging infrastructure in new and refurbished buildings, and neither has produced a final outcome yet.
For owner-occupiers with a kerbside spot, the sequence is simpler than it was last month. Permission for the channel is no longer the first hurdle.