Building EV charging into new road and home developments
Developers have to meet a range of new regulations when they are building homes and offices – many of them designed to reduce carbon emissions and to encourage people to switch to cleaner alternatives.
One of the things that people are likely to see more of in these developments is charging points for electric vehicles – EV charging. Last year, the UK government announced changes to building regulations, including new requirements for EV charging, from 2022.
There are four key points:
- Every new home with associated parking should have an EV charging point.
- Residential buildings that have major renovation works and more than 10 parking spaces should have at least one EV charging point per parking space, plus cables that allow those without parking spaces to charge.
- New non-residential developments with more than 10 parking spaces should have ‘a minimum of one charge point and cable routes for one in five of the total number of spaces’.
- The same requirements apply to non-residential buildings undergoing major renovation.
At the moment, these regulations apply to England only.
Getting EV infrastructure right
With the government ban on new petrol and diesel cars coming into force in 2035, there needs to be a comprehensive and reliable charging network across the country to support people buying electric vehicles. According to the BBC, more electric cars were registered in 2021 than in the whole of the past five years combined, and there was also a huge expansion of the charging network. The Zap Map website says there are around 30,000 public chargers available already, but the management and cost of these is fractured and motorists can often arrive to find that the charger is not working.
So it’s encouraging to see the government focus on reliability of EV charging as well as availability. Recently, it announced that rapid charging networks will need to have 99% reliability. The Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps said:
“It’s essential that EV drivers feel confident using the public chargepoint network. In this consultation, we set out proposals that mean current and future EV drivers will be able to locate available chargepoints simply, pay for a charge more easily and recharge their cars more reliably, regardless of where they are going in the UK.
“Drivers need to know they can rely on the public charging network for any journey they take. This will reduce range anxiety and position the UK as a world leader in deploying advanced EV charging infrastructure.”
Traffic surveys from Road Data Services
For brand new developments and renovation projects that affect the current road network, RDS can help with collecting relevant and accurate data to help with decision making. To find out more about how we can help with traffic surveys, pedestrian surveys, parking data and more, contact us today.
