ADEPT calls for national action to close public EV charging gap

The awkward bit about the EV transition is that buying the car is only half the story. The other half is whether people can charge it without planning their week around broken chargers, payment apps or a long walk back from the nearest available bay.

That’s why the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, or ADEPT, is stepping in. It wants fairer charging access to the roughly third of UK households that cannot charge from a driveway or private parking spot. It says public charging can, in some cases, cost more than three times as much as charging at home, with the VAT gap between domestic electricity and public charging only adding to the problem.

The charging network is growing, but growth on its own does not fix this. DfT figures show there were 119,080 public EV chargers in the UK as of April 1, 2026, but those chargers are not all doing the same job. Around 32% were classed as on-street chargers, and while London has far more public chargers per head than the rest of the UK, it has relatively fewer rapid chargers, because much of its network is standard on-street infrastructure.

That makes it even more important to think locally when it comes to EV charging. Thus far, there is huge disparity from area to area. That means one minute someone can be in an area like Old Bexley and Sidcup, where, according to the EVA’s EV constituency map, 52.9% of households without off-street parking are within a five-minute walk of a public charger. Cross the border into Dartford, and that falls to 15.7%. That same issue also plays out on longer journeys too – with an equally disparate rollout for rapid chargers.

Councils are dealing with kerbside space, pavement clutter, accessibility, grid connections, procurement, maintenance and residents who just want charging to be straightforward. It is not an easy job. But a patchy local approach means the charging experience can vary sharply depending on the street, borough or county.

Government support already exists through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund, but ADEPT’s point is that councils need long-term certainty, not just project-by-project funding rounds, if they are going to plan networks properly and maintain them once installed.

There is also a confidence issue. Public charge point regulations are already pushing operators towards clearer pricing, contactless payment on many chargers, open data and 99% reliability for rapid networks. That is useful, but it is not the same as a joined-up national system that feels predictable for drivers or manageable for councils and operators.

So ADEPT is calling for the Government to move EV charging from rollout-by-volume to rollout-by-system. It wants the focus to come away from just more chargers. It wants the focus to be on who pays, who plans, who maintains, who gets a fair price, and whether the public network can support mass adoption rather than just early adopters.

With BEVs accounting for 23.4% of new car registrations in 2025, that question is becoming harder to avoid. The vehicle market is moving. The public charging system now has to prove it can move with it.

Ann Carruthers, Past President of ADEPT and former Chair of ADEPT’s Transport & Connectivity Board, noted, "Electric vehicles are a cornerstone of the UK's decarbonisation strategy, but the transition will only succeed if drivers can charge their vehicles reliably, affordably and in the right places. Local authorities are at the heart of delivering this and they need the funding, powers and consistency to do it properly."