Electric vehicle charging under Part S and planning

Part S of the Building Regulations has done most of the work that planning conditions used to do on electric vehicle charging. Since 15 June 2022 in England, every new dwelling with an associated parking space has to have a charge point, and new non-residential buildings with more than ten spaces have to provide at least one charge point plus cable routes for a share of the rest. That changes what you should be arguing at application stage, because a condition repeating Part S is doing nothing useful.

The interesting questions are now about capacity, cost caps and the places where a local policy goes further than the national standard.

What Part S requires for new dwellings

The residential rule is simple to state. A new residential building with associated parking must have one charge point for each dwelling with an associated space, with a minimum output of 7kW, and the charge point must be capable of smart functionality.

Where a residential building has more associated parking spaces than dwellings, the excess spaces get cable routes rather than charge points. Cable route means the physical containment, ducting and capacity to install a charge point later without digging up the surfacing or rewiring the riser.

Major renovation work triggers a lower but real duty. A residential building undergoing major renovation that will have more than ten parking spaces after the work must provide a charge point for each dwelling with an associated space and a cable route for every space without one.

Approved Document S also sets out the practicalities that catch designers out: the charge point must be accessible, positioned so the cable reaches the vehicle inlet without crossing a pedestrian route, and installed with an electrical supply arrangement that can actually carry the load.

Provision for buildings with communal parking

Flats with shared parking are where the standard gets interesting. The duty attaches to spaces associated with a dwelling, so a block with allocated bays behaves like housing, and a block with an unallocated communal car park does not.

For a new non-residential building with more than ten parking spaces, the requirement is at least one charge point plus cable routes for one in five of the remaining spaces. The same applies to a non-residential building undergoing major renovation that will have more than ten spaces afterwards.

In practice, a mixed-use block with a shared basement usually ends up with a scheme designed around a load management system rather than one circuit per bay. That is acceptable under the Approved Document, provided the minimum output is delivered to each connected vehicle when the system is operating.

Where the parking is communal and unallocated, the honest approach at application stage is to design the containment for progressive rollout and say so in the Transport Statement, with a trigger for additional installation tied to demand.

Cable route requirements where a socket is not provided

Cable route provision is the part most often value-engineered out and then regretted. It is a physical route for a cable from the consumer unit or distribution board to the parking space, sized and left clear.

Getting it right means three things. Capacity in the board and the incoming supply for the eventual load. A duct or tray with pull cords, terminated at both ends in an accessible position. And a record of where it runs, which should sit in the building manual rather than in an installer's head.

Retrofitting a charge point to a space with a proper cable route is a half-day job. Retrofitting to a space without one, across a resin-bound driveway or a finished basement slab, is not.

Exemptions and the cost cap

Part S does not require the impossible, and the escape route is financial. Where the cost of the connection to the existing electricity supply exceeds £3,600 per charge point, the requirement is capped: you install as many charge points as can be provided within that cap and provide cable routes for the remaining spaces.

The cap applies to the connection cost, not to the charge point hardware or the installation labour. Evidence for relying on it comes from the distribution network operator quotation, which should be appended rather than summarised.

There are further exclusions, including certain building types and works where the parking is not associated with the building. Read the Approved Document rather than a summary of it, because the definitions of associated parking and major renovation do the heavy lifting.

Part S applies in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own building standards and their own charging requirements, so a scheme across a border needs the relevant national position checked by the reviewer rather than assumed.

Where planning conditions go further

National building standards set a floor. Development plan policy can sit above it, and in some places it does.

The London Plan 2021 sets out active and passive electric vehicle charging provision through its transport policies, and boroughs apply that through conditions and their own parking standards. Several authorities outside London have adopted parking standards documents that require a higher share of active bays in town centre or commercial schemes, particularly for car clubs and taxi ranks.

Where a condition duplicates Part S without adding anything, it fails the tests for conditions in national policy, and it is worth saying so in the covering submission. Where a condition adds genuine local requirements, deal with it in the Travel Plan rather than leaving it to the electrical contractor to discover at fit-out.

Electrical capacity and network constraints

Capacity is the constraint that actually bites on larger schemes. A hundred-space basement with 7kW to every bay is a 700kW connected load before you add lifts, lighting and heat pumps.

Load management systems are the standard answer. They allocate available capacity dynamically, prioritise vehicles by dwell time or departure time, and keep the incoming supply within its rating. Distribution network operators increasingly expect to see one described in the connection application.

Start the network conversation early. A budget estimate from the network operator takes weeks, a formal quotation longer, and a substation requirement can change the site layout. On a scheme with an adopted substation, the land take and access arrangement need to appear on the submitted layout rather than in a later amendment.

An illustrative example

A 34-flat scheme with 22 allocated basement bays and 6 visitor bays. Part S requires a charge point for each of the 22 allocated spaces and cable routes for the 6 visitor spaces. The network quotation shows a connection cost above the cap for the last eight bays, so the design provides 14 active points, cable routes to the remaining 14, a load management system rated to the incoming supply, and a written trigger to install further points as demand grows. This example is illustrative rather than drawn from a specific case.

Evidencing the position at application stage

Three documents carry the argument, and they should agree with one another.

The site layout should show which bays are active, which have cable routes, where the distribution board sits and how the cable routes run. Officers reject schemes where the charging strategy is described in text but absent from the drawing.

The transport documents should state the provision against both Part S and the local policy, and explain any shortfall against the local policy with evidence rather than assertion. Our guidance on evidencing parking provision above or below standard sets out the same approach for numbers of spaces generally, and the accessible parking bay requirements interact with charging, because an accessible bay with a charge point needs a wider transfer zone and a bollard position that does not block it.

And keep the permitted development position in mind for existing buildings. Schedule 2 Part 2 of the General Permitted Development Order 2015 allows wall-mounted outlets and upstands for recharging vehicles within limits, subject to the usual exclusions in conservation areas and on listed buildings. That right covers retrofits, not the provision required in a new build.

Draft the transport narrative for your scheme and send the technical calculations to a qualified author. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.