Electric vehicles

We want to support electric vehicle owners and to encourage more residents to change from internal combustion engine cars to electric vehicles. As most residents do not have off-street parking facilities, and therefore cannot install their own electric vehicle chargers, we know that we must provide charging points on-street.

All our EV chargers are at a height that makes them accessible to wheelchair users.

Charging points in the borough

As of mid-December 2021, in Kensington and Chelsea there are:

• Three rapid chargers
• 116 Source London charging points 
• 545 lamp column chargers

This means that practically all residents are within 200 metres of a charging point and over 94 per cent of residents are within 100 metres.

Find a charging point with the Zapmap website

Rapid chargers

The three rapid chargers in the Borough are in Oakley Street, Symons Street, and Russell Gardens.  

These are operated by BP Pulse and provide 50kw of power. In May 2021  the average pay as you go tariff is 25 pence per kW per hour. See the BP Pulse website for more information.

Source London charging points

Source London is a London-wide scheme for electric vehicle drivers. 

All Source London charging points are in dedicated EV bays and only EVs that are charging may park there.

The 116 charging points are spread across the Borough. Most sites have two charging points (one 7kw and one 22kw), but a few  sites have just one 7kw charging point.

Full details can be found on the Source London website.

Source London offers three tariffs, including two membership rates and a pay as you go rate:

• Source London also offers a reservation system to full and flexi members.
• Find out more about Source London.

Lamp column charging points

These charging points are operated by Ubitricity and offer a 5kw charge.

Ubitricity offers three tariffs: including a pay as you go rate.

​We do not provide dedicated parking bays for electric vehicles that use lamp column chargers. Chargers are located in lamp columns next to residents’ bays and pay-by-phone visitor parking bays.

Parking charges and maximum stay requirements apply in the pay-by-phone visitor parking bays during controlled hours which are usually:

• 8.30am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday
• 8.30am to 1.30pm or 8.30am to 6.30pm on Saturday depending on location

Please check signs as there are some exceptions. However, most electric vehicle users use the lamp column chargers at night when parking is free.

Resident permit holders can also park free of charge in pay-by-phone visitor parking bays between:

• 8.30am and 9.30am and between 5.30pm and 6.30pm Monday to Saturday (where controls still apply).

This means that if you are a resident you can leave your car from 5.30pm until 9.30am the following morning free of parking charges but if you want to park during pay-by-phone visitor parking controlled hours, you will have to pay.

Non-residents will need to pay during all the pay-by-phone visitor parking controlled hours.

Contact Ubitricity Customer Services  to report a faulty charger at 0800 024 6279 (available 24/7) or
[email protected].

Locating lamp column chargers

We are building a network of charging points across the Borough to ensure all residents have at least one close to their home.

Not all lamp columns are suitable for lamp column chargers. We cannot install chargers in Kensington Vestry Heritage style columns or any other columns that are within 15 metres of other electrical equipment, on narrow pavements or which are not in reach of a parking bay There are also other non-visible restrictions such as underground services that we cannot be aware of until our contractors carry out surveys.

We install lamp column chargers in batches as funding becomes available. At present, all funding has been allocated but we hope to be able to plan more installations in early 2022.

Please see  Zapmap website for the locations of all charging points in the Borough. If your home address does not have a nearby charging point, please email us at [email protected] and we will look to providing more charging points in the area when funding is available.

Residents' parking permits for electric vehicles

Residents’ parking permits for electric vehicles are charged at the lowest permit tariff.

Residents can only have one permit for one car. Although electric vehicles do not produce emissions at the point of use, they still take up parking space which is in short supply in the borough, and are therefore subject to the second and subsequent permit surcharge which applies to households which have more than one car.

Visitor parking for electric vehicles

We offer discounted rates for visitors with electric vehicles in pay by phone bays, see our tariffs webpage.

If you have any other queries relating to EV charging points, please email [email protected].

Charging on Council Estates

We do not currently have any on-Estate electrical vehicle charging available to our residents, however, we are currently looking into this as a priority.

If you would like to register your interest in using on-Estate electrical vehicle charging please let us know by emailing your name, address, vehicle registration, make and model to [email protected].

Charging from your home

We do not allow residents to run cables from their homes across the footway to charge their electric vehicles as it is an offence under the Highways Act 1980 to place objects on the public highway that could present a hazard to other road users.

From April 2022, the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme  will no longer be open to homeowners (including people with mortgages) who live in single-unit properties such as bungalows and detached, semi-detached or terraced housing.

Installations in single-unit properties need to be completed by 31 March 2022 and a claim submitted to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) by 30 April 2022.

The scheme will remain open to:

• homeowners who live in flats
• people in rental accommodation (flats and single-use properties)

Government Grants will soon be available for private landlords and leaseholders from the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme. Applications open April 2022.