IN Brief:
- Reading Borough Council has signed a 15-year agreement with char.gy for around 2,600 public EV charge points.
- At least 90% of households without driveways are expected to be within 100 metres of a charger.
- The programme will use LEVI funding and prioritise high-density residential streets with limited off-street parking.
char.gy has signed a 15-year agreement with Reading Borough Council to install around 2,600 public electric vehicle charge points across residential streets in the borough.
The scheme is focused on households without off-street parking, where residents cannot easily install private home chargers. Reading Borough Council expects at least 90% of homes without a driveway to be within 100 metres of a charge point once the rollout is complete.
The council has secured £866,000 from the UK Government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund to support the programme. Around 1,500 charge points are expected to be installed over the next two years, with priority given to high-density residential streets where on-street parking is common.
Most of the chargers will be fitted to existing lamp columns, reducing the need for standalone street furniture and limiting installation disruption. Standalone units will be used where lamp column charging is unsuitable, giving the rollout a mixed deployment model that can adapt to street layouts, parking patterns, and electrical constraints.
Residential charging is becoming a core part of local electrical infrastructure. Private driveways allow relatively simple home charging, but large parts of the UK’s urban housing stock were built without dedicated off-street parking. Public kerbside charging has to fill that gap if EV access is to extend beyond homes with private parking.
A 15-year agreement also places the scheme beyond a short installation programme. The charge points will need long-term maintenance, asset management, fault response, utilisation monitoring, and customer support. Reliability will determine whether residents view the network as everyday infrastructure rather than an occasional charging option.
Distribution planning is central to that task. Local low-voltage networks were not designed around widespread kerbside charging demand, especially where multiple households on the same street begin charging overnight. National Grid Electricity Distribution’s ten-year Network Development Plan shows how headroom, constraints, flexibility, and reinforcement are being mapped as local demand rises from EVs, heat pumps, storage, and commercial development.
Lamp column charging can reduce visual impact and civil engineering work, but it still requires careful assessment. Suitability depends on electrical supply, column condition, parking alignment, protection arrangements, metering, communications, earthing, maintenance access, and local traffic management. Where standalone units are needed, installation can involve additional groundworks, feeder arrangements, and connection work.
Street-level charging also affects how councils manage parking. Charge point location, bay designation, accessibility, pavement width, cable safety, resident demand, and enforcement all shape whether a scheme works in practice. Dense deployment helps reduce range anxiety, but poor placement can create underused assets or local opposition.
The Reading programme is large enough to provide a useful model for LEVI-backed delivery. A dense network of residential chargers can reduce pressure on rapid hubs, support households without driveways, and give local authorities a clearer view of future electrical demand. It also tests whether lamp column infrastructure can support large-scale deployment without excessive reinforcement or maintenance costs.
Kerbside charging will not remove the need for workplace, destination, depot, and rapid charging infrastructure, but it addresses one of the most persistent gaps in EV access. Reading’s rollout will be measured by coverage, charger uptime, resident use, and the ability of the local network to absorb charging demand as adoption grows.