Permitted development rights for EV chargepoints

Most domestic electric vehicle chargepoints go in without a planning application, because Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 grants permitted development rights for them. The rights cover a wall-mounted outlet and its casing, and a free-standing upstand with an outlet, within the curtilage of a building and for off-street parking. They are not unlimited, and the limits are about size, position and where the property sits.

The rules have been amended more than once as charging equipment changed. Read the current text of Part 2 before you rely on a figure from a forum post or an installer's leaflet.

What Part 2 permits

Two situations are covered. The first is an electrical outlet mounted on a wall of a building, or on a wall within its curtilage, for recharging electric vehicles. The second is an upstand, meaning a free-standing bollard or post carrying the outlet, again within the curtilage and serving off-street parking.

Both have equivalents for off-street parking areas that are not domestic curtilage, which is how workplace and car park installations are usually done without an application.

The rights attach to the parking that exists. They do not create a parking space, and they do not authorise a new vehicular access. If you need to drop a kerb to use the charger, that is a separate matter dealt with by the highway authority, and on a classified road it needs planning permission as well.

Wall-mounted units and the volume limit

The wall-mounted class carries a limit on the volume of the outlet together with its casing. It is a small allowance, comfortably met by ordinary domestic units and not by the larger enclosures sometimes used for commercial equipment or where a separate isolator and meter box are combined into one housing.

Position matters as much as size. A unit that faces onto and sits close to a highway falls outside the right, which is aimed at street-facing clutter on frontages where the pavement is immediately beyond the boundary. The distance and the exact wording are in the conditions to the class, so check them against your proposed position rather than against an assumption about front and back.

Where the property is on article 2(3) land, the restriction on elevations fronting a highway is tighter. A charger tucked on a flank wall behind a gate is usually fine. One bolted to the front of a terrace on a conservation area street usually is not.

Free-standing upstands

An upstand suits a driveway where there is no suitable wall, or where the cable run from the house would be awkward. The class sets a maximum height above ground level, restricts how close the upstand can be to a highway, and limits the number permitted in relation to the parking spaces served.

The practical design point is that an upstand is more visible than a wall unit and harder to make unobtrusive. Set it back from the boundary, keep it off the sightline at the access, and think about where a car will actually stop, because an upstand positioned for the cable and not for the vehicle gets reversed into.

Where a driveway serves two households, or where the parking is shared, the ownership question comes before the planning one. The right sits with the building's curtilage, so an upstand on land in common ownership needs the other owners' agreement whatever the GPDO says.

Conditions that come with the right

Two conditions apply to chargepoint development under Part 2 and both are easy to overlook.

The first is that development must be carried out, so far as practicable, to minimise its effect on the external appearance of the building and on the amenity of the area. That is a real constraint, not decoration. Grey unit, grey wall, cable in a neat trunking run at low level, and it is met. A white box on a red brick front elevation with a loop of cable stapled across the brickwork invites an enforcement enquiry.

The second is removal. When the equipment is no longer needed for charging electric vehicles, it must be removed as soon as reasonably practicable. Nobody policies this often, but it matters on a sale, and it matters where an installation was justified as temporary.

Where the rights do not apply

Permitted development for chargepoints does not extend to the curtilage of a listed building. That means planning permission, and separately listed building consent for fixing anything to the building itself. Conservation officers are not usually obstructive about chargers, and a well-placed unit on a secondary elevation with a discreet cable route is often agreed, but the consent has to be obtained first.

An Article 4 direction can remove Part 2 rights in a defined area. These are less common for chargepoints than for householder extensions and shopfronts, though some authorities have made broad directions covering several parts of Schedule 2. Check the council's Article 4 register before assuming.

Flats are the other gap. The domestic classes are framed around the curtilage of a building and off-street parking associated with it, and communal parking courts serving blocks of flats raise ownership and management questions before they raise planning ones. The off-street parking classes often provide the answer, but the freeholder's consent is the first hurdle.

Electrical capacity is the quiet constraint behind all of this. A single dwelling with a standard supply can usually take a 7 kW unit. A parking court where a dozen leaseholders each want one will need the distribution network operator involved, and the answer may be load management rather than a bigger supply. That conversation takes longer than any of the planning questions above.

Where a full application is still needed

An application is the right route where the unit exceeds the size or height limits, where it would sit on a highway-fronting elevation on article 2(3) land, where the property is a listed building or in its curtilage, where an Article 4 direction applies, or where the works involve a new access or a new hardstanding that itself needs permission.

For anything borderline, a Lawful Development Certificate under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is the only formal way to confirm that proposed works are lawful. It costs less than a full application and it answers the question on the title file rather than in an email.

One more thread worth pulling: for new dwellings, building regulations now require charging infrastructure to be provided, which is a separate regime from planning and applies whether or not permitted development is relevant. Installers sometimes conflate the two. They are different rules with different enforcement.

You can follow reform in this area through the planning law updates timeline, and for a project that needs more than a charger you can browse the report types or enter a postcode on the home page. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice; a Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful, so check the position with your local planning authority before relying on it.