The short answer. A home EV charge point is normally permitted development, which means no planning application. Two things take that away. An Article 4 direction is one of them: it is a formal direction made by your council that switches off named permitted-development rights across a defined area, and where one covers the classes that charge points sit in, you need a householder planning application no matter how small or discreet the unit is. A listed building is the other, and that one is stricter again. Being in a conservation area, on its own, has never removed the right to put a charger on a wall in your own off-street parking — although from 21 October 2026 that changes for chargers sited anywhere other than an existing parking area. This guide sets out what the rules say, how to check your own address, and what the work costs.
We install charge points across Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Enfield, Waltham Forest, Camden, Barnet, Newham and Tower Hamlets from our base at Ten 87 Studios, Markfield Road, Tottenham N15. If you want the position checked before you commit to a unit, call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453.
What an Article 4 direction actually is
Permitted development is a national grant of planning permission. It lives in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 — the GPDO — and it is organised into Parts and Classes. Electric vehicle charging sits in Part 2 of Schedule 2: Class D for an outlet mounted on a wall, Class E for an outlet on an upstand and for the equipment housing that goes with larger installations. If your job fits inside the Class, permission is already granted and you simply do the work.
Article 4 of the same Order lets a local planning authority take that grant away. The council makes a direction, consults on it, defines the area it covers on a map, and lists the Classes it withdraws. Inside that boundary the national permission no longer applies to those Classes, and anything that would have relied on it needs an ordinary planning application instead.
Most Article 4 directions in London were not made with electric cars in mind at all. The common ones remove change-of-use rights — family house to small shared house, shop to flat, office to flat — and those have nothing to do with a charge point. Others are made over conservation areas to protect the look of the street, and remove rights over front elevations, front boundary walls, windows, roofs and hard surfacing. It is this second kind that can catch a charger, because a direction drawn widely enough to cover Part 2 covers Class D and Class E with it.
So the question is never “is there an Article 4 direction here”. It is “does the direction covering my address remove Part 2“. Directions are specific documents with specific schedules, and the schedule is the part that matters.
Is a home EV charge point permitted development?
Usually, yes — but the detail of the Class is being rewritten this month, so the honest answer depends on when the work is done.
The rules up to 20 October 2026
Under Class D as it stands, an outlet for recharging vehicles is permitted development where:
- it is mounted on a wall within an area lawfully used for off-street parking — a driveway, a hardstanding, a garage wall, a parking space that belongs to the property;
- the outlet and its casing together do not exceed 0.2 cubic metres. That is a volume limit, not a height or width limit, and every domestic wall unit on the market is comfortably inside it;
- it is not within a scheduled monument, and not within the curtilage of a listed building.
There used to be a further restriction on outlets facing or sitting within two metres of a highway. That was removed on 29 May 2025, which quietly solved the most common London problem: a short front hardstanding where the only sensible wall is the front of the house, a few feet from the pavement. Plenty of guidance written before mid-2025 still repeats the two-metre rule, so if you have been told your frontage is a non-starter on that basis, the advice is out of date.
One condition travels with the permission: when the charge point is no longer needed, it has to be removed as soon as reasonably practicable and the wall made good so far as reasonably practicable.
What changes on 21 October 2026
An amending Order comes into force on 21 October 2026 and it widens Class D and Class E while adding new limits. The headline is a second route into permitted development: an outlet may be sited anywhere within the curtilage of a house or a block of flats, not only within an area already used for off-street parking. For a London terrace with a front garden and no driveway, or a block with a bin store and a side return, that is a real change.
The new limits that come with it:
- Height. The outlet must not be mounted more than 1.6 metres above ground level. New, and worth knowing before you buy a unit with a long fixed cable you intended to hang high.
- Number. The new route cannot result in more than one outlet within the curtilage of the house or block.
- Conservation areas. The new, wider route does not apply in a conservation area unless the charger goes in an existing off-street parking area. In other words, conservation-area status does not block a charger on your driveway, but it does block the new front-garden route.
- Walls on the back edge of the pavement. Where the wall immediately adjoins a highway, the outlet may project no more than 0.2 metres from the wall, and at least 1.5 metres of footway must remain between its outermost part and the edge of the carriageway. On a narrow Tottenham or Hackney pavement, that is the limit that decides it.
- Cables over a pavement. Where a footway lies between the outlet and the vehicle, the cable must cross using an authorised cross-pavement solution. Trailing a lead over the public footway is not a lawful way to charge, and never was.
Class E, the upstand and equipment version, follows the same location rules. Its height limit is 2.7 metres in a non-domestic area used for off-street parking and 1.6 metres anywhere else, the residential non-parking route is likewise excluded in conservation areas, and the cumulative volume of equipment housing in a non-domestic parking area is capped at 45 cubic metres. Above 29 cubic metres on the more sensitive categories of land, there is a prior-approval application to the council first. That end of it is a commercial car-park question rather than a household one, but if you manage a site with a bank of chargers going in, the housing volume is the figure to watch.
The transitional year
The Order carries a transitional provision: development that was permitted immediately before 21 October 2026, and which loses its permission because of the change, may still be completed up to 20 October 2027. If you have a charger specified and about to be fitted under the old wording, you are not stranded. If you have one specified and no date in the diary, it is worth checking the new limits against the drawing now rather than in six months.
When does an Article 4 direction stop you?
When the direction covering your address lists Part 2 among the Classes it withdraws. Then the national permission is gone and the charge point needs a householder planning application — size, position and discretion are irrelevant to that, because what you have lost is the automatic grant, not the merits.
Losing permitted development is not the same as being refused. It means the council decides, on the planning merits, instead of the answer being automatic. For a small grey box on a side elevation or behind a boundary wall, applications of this kind are not usually controversial. What draws an objection is a unit on a prominent principal elevation, surface-mounted conduit run across historic brick or stucco, or a position that makes the only workable cable route a trailing lead across the footway.
Two things follow from that. First, decide the position before you apply, not after: the position is the application. Second, get the cable route on the drawing, because an officer who cannot see how the car gets charged without a lead over the pavement has a reason to refuse.
We see this most in Islington. The Tufnell Park conservation area, CA11, is a good example of the pattern — a 1860s and 1870s estate of villas and tall terraces with an Article 4 direction over it, where works that would be permitted a few streets away need an application. We set out the detail on our Tufnell Park electrician page, and the same logic turns up in the Camden and Haringey conservation areas we work in. For rewires and bigger jobs in those areas, see rewiring a listed building or a conservation-area property.
How to check your own address in ten minutes
You can settle this yourself before anyone quotes you, and it is worth doing.
- Open your borough’s planning map. Every London council publishes one with layers for conservation areas, Article 4 directions and listed buildings. Put your postcode in and turn the Article 4 layer on.
- Open the direction itself, not just the boundary. If your address falls inside one, the council hosts the direction as a PDF with a schedule. Read the schedule and look for Part 2, or for Class D and Class E. A direction that only removes Part 1 rights, or only change-of-use rights, does not touch your charger.
- Check the listing separately. Listed-building status is a different register. Search the National Heritage List for England for the address, and check whether the listing extends to structures in the curtilage — outbuildings and boundary walls are sometimes included, which catches a garage wall you assumed was unlisted.
- Ring the planning duty desk. Boroughs answer this question daily and will tell you whether Part 2 is removed at your address. Keep a note of the date and who you spoke to.
- If the answer matters financially, apply for a lawful development certificate. A Certificate of Lawfulness for proposed use or development gets you a formal determination that the work is permitted development. It costs money and takes weeks, but it is the only answer that binds the council. Most householders do not need it; someone buying, selling or refinancing sometimes does.
At the time of writing a householder planning application in England costs £528 and takes around eight weeks for a decision, with pre-application advice typically a further £60 to £150 depending on the borough. Fees change, so confirm the current figure on the Planning Portal or the council’s own fee page before you budget. None of that is our money — it goes to the council — but it belongs in the sums when you are deciding between a frontage position that needs consent and a rear position that does not.
Three different restrictions people confuse
Conservation area
Designation under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 means the council pays particular attention to the character and appearance of the area. On its own it has never removed the Class D right to put a charger on a wall in your own off-street parking, and it still does not. From 21 October 2026 it does remove the new wider route — a charger sited somewhere in the curtilage that is not an existing parking area. So in a conservation area, “is it going in the parking area or not” becomes the question that decides whether you need an application.
Article 4 direction
A direction removes named Classes within a drawn boundary. It frequently overlaps a conservation area, which is why the two get muddled, but it is a separate document doing a separate job, and you have to read its schedule to know what it removes. Where it takes Part 2 away, you apply. Where it does not, you do not.
Listed building
The strictest of the three, and the one to be careful about. Class D and Class E do not apply within the curtilage of a listed building at all, so there is no permitted development to lose. Separately, listed building consent is needed for works affecting the building’s special architectural or historic interest, however small the fitting. Carrying out such works without consent is a criminal offence rather than a breach that can be tidied up later with a retrospective application, and that distinction is the reason we will not fix a charger to a listed elevation on a verbal assurance. In practice a free-standing unit in a rear garden, fed underground, is the arrangement most likely to get consent on a Grade II property; a prominent box on a principal elevation of a Grade I or II* building rarely does.
Worth knowing in all three cases: enforcement against unauthorised work in England now runs for ten years, not four. A charger fitted without the consent it needed is a problem that stays on the property, and it is the kind of thing a buyer’s solicitor asks about. Our guide to the paperwork you should have after electrical work covers the certificates that sit alongside the planning side.
What it costs
Prices below are labour and certification only. The charge point itself, any cable, trunking, ducting or cross-pavement channel, and council or DNO fees are itemised separately on the quote. Our minimum charge is £108 inc VAT (£90 + VAT) for the first hour, and it comes off the job if we go on to do the work.
| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| Survey and quote visit booked on its own — position, earthing arrangement, spare capacity | £108 inc VAT, deducted from the job |
| Standard labour after the first hour | £90 + VAT per hour |
| Home charge point, 7kW, straightforward run from the board | from £450 — see EV charger installation costs |
| Charge point where the consumer unit has no spare way — RCBO board fitted at the same visit | board from £550 — see fuse board replacement |
| Earthing and main protective bonding brought up to standard alongside the charger | from £108 |
| Long run, sub-main to a garage, annexe or a parking space the far side of the plot | quoted after survey |
| Block of flats — load assessment on the landlord’s sub-main, allocated bay, managing-agent paperwork | quoted after survey — see EV chargers in flats |
| Three-phase or commercial installation, or a bank of units on a car park | quoted after survey — see three-phase work |
| Trenching, groundworks, reinstatement of a drive or path | quoted after survey |
What moves the number is rarely the charger. It is the distance from the board, whether the cable route is a clean run or a chased wall and a lifted floor, whether the existing board has a way free, and whether the earthing arrangement needs work before a charge point can go on it at all.
What we do when permission is needed
We are electricians, not planning consultants, and we do not submit applications on your behalf. What we do is make sure the electrical side does not collapse the planning side, which is the part that usually goes wrong.
- Survey and load assessment first. Supply capacity, earthing arrangement, board condition, spare ways, and what else in the house draws heavily. A charge point added to a tired board is a fault waiting to happen, and in a block it is the landlord’s sub-main that decides what is possible, not the flat’s own consumer unit.
- A position that stands up to an officer. Usually the least visible wall that still gives a safe, short cable route to where the car actually sits. We will tell you if the position you want is the one most likely to draw an objection.
- A drawn cable route. Concealed where it can be concealed, and clipped tight and run in a colour that disappears where it cannot. Surface conduit across a frontage in a conservation area is the single most common reason these applications get refused.
- Two options where there are two. Often there is a compliant rear or side position that needs no application at all, and a front position that does. You should see both with prices against them before you decide.
- Certification and notification. A charge point is a new circuit, so it gets an Electrical Installation Certificate and, where it applies, Building Control notification — see Part P notification. That is separate from planning and is not optional.
Street parking — the honest answer
If you park on the street, a wall-mounted charge point at your house is not the answer, Article 4 direction or not. We will not fit a unit whose only cable route is a lead across a public footway, because it is a trip hazard, it is not a lawful way to charge, and no certificate makes it acceptable.
The lawful route across a pavement is an authorised cross-pavement channel, and from 21 October 2026 the Order says so explicitly. Those are run as council schemes: the borough decides whether it operates one, which streets qualify, which products it will accept and what it charges. Some London boroughs run them, some do not, and the terms differ. So the sequence is: ask your council whether it has a cross-pavement scheme for your street, and only then talk to us about the electrical side. If there is no scheme, the realistic options are a charge point at an off-street space you have rights over, or the public network.
If you have an allocated bay in a block rather than a driveway, that is a different problem again — the decision runs through the freeholder or managing agent and the load on the landlord’s supply, and we cover it on EV chargers for flats.
Article 4 and EV chargers — common questions
Does a conservation area mean I cannot have an EV charger?
No. Conservation-area status on its own has never removed the right to fit a charger on a wall within your own off-street parking, and it still does not. From 21 October 2026 it does remove the new wider right to site one elsewhere in the curtilage — so in a conservation area a charger on the driveway is permitted development, and a charger in the front garden where there is no parking area is an application.
How do I find out whether an Article 4 direction covers my house?
Your borough’s planning map has an Article 4 layer; put your postcode in. If you are inside one, open the direction document and read its schedule for Part 2, Class D or Class E. If Part 2 is not withdrawn, your charger is unaffected. The planning duty desk will confirm it over the phone.
I fitted a charger without realising I needed permission. What now?
If it was a planning matter, a retrospective householder application can regularise it, and the council can enforce for ten years, so it is better dealt with than ignored — particularly before a sale. If the building is listed and the work affected its special character, that is a different and more serious position and you should take proper advice rather than ours. Either way, make sure you also hold the electrical certificate for the circuit.
Does the charger need Building Control notification as well as planning?
They are separate systems and the answer can be yes to both. A charge point is a new circuit, which is notifiable work under Part P, so it is either notified by a registered installer through a competent person scheme or applied for directly with the council. Planning permission, where it is needed at all, is about appearance and amenity, and is dealt with on its own track.
Can I fit a second charge point?
Under the existing off-street-parking route there is no numerical limit in Class D itself. The new wider curtilage route that starts on 21 October 2026 does cap it at one outlet within the curtilage. If you want two, the practical question is also electrical — two 7kW points on a single-phase domestic supply need load management or a supply upgrade, and that is a survey question.
Do you handle the planning application?
No. We survey, advise on position and cable route, price the electrical work, install and certify. The application is yours to make, or your architect’s, and the council’s forms are straightforward for a householder submission. We will give you what we have on the proposed position so the drawing matches what gets installed.
My driveway is right on the pavement. Is that a problem?
It was until May 2025, when the restriction on outlets facing or within two metres of a highway was removed. From 21 October 2026 there is a new limit for a wall that immediately adjoins the highway: the unit may project no more than 0.2 metres and must leave at least 1.5 metres of footway clear to the carriageway. On narrow London pavements that is the measurement to take before you choose a unit, and it is one of the first things we check on a survey.
Book an EV charge point survey in North London
F&A Electrical is an NICEIC-approved, Part P registered electrical contractor working out of Ten 87 Studios, Markfield Road, Tottenham N15, across Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Enfield, Waltham Forest, Camden, Barnet, Newham and Tower Hamlets, plus the central EC, WC and W1 streets. Checkatrade rating 9.32 out of 10 from 242 reviews. Fully insured, certified to the current edition of BS 7671.
If you want to know whether your address needs an application before you spend money on a unit, call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453. Tell us your full postcode and where the car sits — those two things settle most of it on the phone, and the rest needs a look at the board and the intake. Our minimum charge is £108 inc VAT for the first hour and it comes off the job if we do the work.
More guides: all our electrical guides · EV charger installation costs · EV chargers in flats · listed buildings and conservation areas · Part P notification · EICR costs in London · fuse board replacement · HMO EICRs · PAT testing. Areas we cover: London service areas · EV chargers in Islington · EV chargers in Camden · EV chargers in Haringey · electrician in Tufnell Park.