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What the 2026 Budget means if you charge an EV on the street

The short version: Wednesday's Budget did not change the rules on running a cable across the pavement, and it did not change the £500 grant. It did keep VAT off household electricity until July 2027, put £100 million from spring 2027 towards cheaper prices at the slow public chargers found on residential streets, and set up a taskforce to look at letting you pay your home tariff at those chargers. It also confirmed that pay-per-mile tax for electric cars starts in April 2028. If you have no driveway and your council allows cable channels, charging at home is still the cheapest option, and this week did nothing to change that.

I built Hedgevolt in Swinton because neighbours on terraced streets kept asking me the same thing: can I charge at home, and will the council let me? The Budget cannot answer that for any one street, but it does show where the government is putting its money.

What the Budget said about charging

The Treasury set out three measures on 28 October that matter if you park on the street.

£100 million for kerbside chargers. Spread over two years from spring 2027, the money is meant to cut prices at "local, lower-powered public chargers", the ones typically found on residential streets. The government expects it to save the average driver without home charging around £150 a year. How the money will reach the price you pay at the charger has not been decided; the Department for Transport will "set out next steps in due course".

A tariff porting taskforce. Tariff porting would let you charge at a public charger near your home and pay your home electricity rate, billed by your own supplier, plus an access fee. The Budget calls it "a complex proposal that will take time to consider". For now it is a study, not something you can sign up for.

VAT on home electricity stays at zero. VAT on household electricity in Great Britain went from 5% to 0% on 1 October 2026. The Budget extends that to July 2027. It applies to every unit you put into your car from a home charger. Northern Ireland is expected to get the same relief from April 2027.

What did not change: VAT on public charging stays at 20%, and legislation taking effect on 1 November 2026 confirms that public and workplace charging does not count as domestic use. ChargeUK's chief executive, Shane Brennan, said the decision would do "serious damage" to the EV transition. The Budget did not mention the EV Chargepoint Grant for Households with On-Street Parking, and the grant page still shows 75% of the cost of a chargepoint, up to £500, closing at 11pm on 31 March 2027.

Pay-per-mile is still coming

The Budget confirmed Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) from April 2028. Under the policy paper published in July, battery electric cars will pay 3p a mile and plug-in hybrids 1.5p a mile, on top of normal vehicle tax. Mileage will be estimated each year and corrected against what you actually drive, and the Budget adds a mileage estimation tool at launch and an opt-in "eVED Connect" that reports mileage from the car itself.

eVED is charged per mile wherever you charge, so it does not change the gap between home and public charging. It does make the cost per mile matter more.

The review behind the numbers

The Budget measures follow an independent review of public charging costs, led by Philip New and published on the same day. Its findings explain why a cable channel is worth the effort:

The review notes that high public prices are pushing drivers towards cross-pavement solutions and charger-sharing apps. It presents tariff porting as a more scalable alternative that avoids pavement works, because it keeps drivers using the public network. That is a fair point for streets where a channel will never work, and those streets exist. But tariff porting is years away, and a channel works now where the council allows it.

To give a rough sense of scale (my arithmetic, not the review's): at 7,500 miles a year, the difference between 10p and 18p a mile is about £600 a year. What a channel costs depends on your council. In Cambridgeshire the council estimates around £1,000 plus VAT for the channel and £190 for the licence, and pays £500 back. In Stoke-on-Trent the scheme covers the full cost of the gully.

The order of steps has not changed

Nothing in the Budget changes the order you have to follow. Council permission comes first, then the grant, then the install.

Since 21 October 2026, a cable channel in England installed with the highway authority's authorisation generally no longer needs a planning application. The government puts the saving at up to £300. That new right does not cover conservation areas, the curtilage of a listed building or scheduled monuments, and it does not replace the council's own consent to use the pavement.

For the grant, the steps on the government's page are: get a quote from an OZEV-approved installer, get your highway authority's consent for a permanent cross-pavement solution, then apply with that consent as evidence. Do not have the chargepoint fitted until OZEV confirms you are eligible, because the grant cannot be backdated. After the install, your installer claims the grant and takes it off your invoice.

Councils vary a great deal. Of the 152 English highway authorities on Hedgevolt, 18 have a live scheme and 25 are running a trial. Cambridgeshire opened a trial of 250 channels on 5 October; by 23 October the remaining places were in Fenland only. Stoke-on-Trent has run its scheme since September 2025.

Two more councils have said yes this month, though neither is taking applications yet. On 19 October, Trafford's Executive approved a one-year cross-pavement trial: eligible residents will pay a fixed fee, and up to the first 240 get £500 off it. Trafford says around 28% of its households have no off-street parking. Kirklees Cabinet agreed in early October to a trial expected to run for 12 months, with up to £330,000 in funding to subsidise installs still being agreed. Neither council has published its fee or application process yet.

For 71 councils we found no published policy, which is not the same as a refusal.

Should you wait for cheaper public charging?

I would not. The £100 million does not start until spring 2027 and nobody yet knows how it will work. The tariff porting taskforce has no timetable. The grant closes on 31 March 2027, and a council application, a highway licence and an installer booking can easily take three or four months between them. If your street is suitable and your council has a scheme or a trial, this winter is when to use the grant.

If your council says no, the Budget at least points to the fallback getting cheaper: the slow chargers near your home are exactly the ones the £100 million is aimed at.

What to do next

Before you buy a charger, check whether your council allows cable channels, what it charges and which products it accepts. You can look up your postcode at hedgevolt.co.uk. If the answer is a live scheme or a trial, apply to the council first and keep the grant deadline in view. If the answer is no published policy, ask the highways team directly and keep a copy of the reply. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Sources

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