Electric vehicles

The future is here. Electric vehicles (EVs) are taking an increasing share of the new vehicle market. Epping Forest district has the highest number of battery-only EVs (BEV) on the roads of all Essex districts, and the growth curve is rising steeply. BEV plus London electric cabs owned locally now exceed 1,000 vehicles, plus more than 800 plug-in hybrids (PHEV).

The vast majority of these are owned by residents or businesses with off-street parking. We estimate that more than one third of local homes have no access to off street parking and many more will have financial or other constraints on being able to charge at home.

Relying only on public EV charging is viable for some people. If you are interested in getting an EV please think through your likely annual mileage, the mix of short and long or motorway trips you might make, the range of the vehicle and therefore how you can easily keep it charged. Trailing charging cables across pavements or grassed areas is not permitted and even if you have off street parking we recommend an approved installation engineer visits your home before going ahead just in case there are other reasons a home charger is not possible. If you are a council tenant you must speak to us before having a home charging point installed.

Providing public EV charging supports our key policies of reducing road transport emissions, helping meet the Interim Air Pollution Mitigation Strategy for a minimum 10% conversion of petrol cars to Ultra Low Emission Vehicles by 2025, and working towards becoming a carbon-neutral district by 2030.

• GOV.UK – Common misconceptions about electric vehicles

Latest News

• Tell Essex County Council where you would like to see on-street EV chargers
• EV charging points installed in Debden – 24 July 2023
• Essex County Council EV strategy Consultation
• Electric charging points installed in Ongar – 21 March 2023 
• EV charging points installed in Loughton – 23 March 2022
• Business Matters – EV case studies from local businesses
• Essex County Council Secures Funding for EV charging

Grants

Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) grant schemes for the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure: guidance and application forms.

• Grant schemes for electric vehicle charging infrastructure

Find a charge point

Council owned car parks

Bansons Lane Car Park, Ongar

• Address: Bansons Lane car park, Ongar, CM5 9AR
• What3Words location: actor.data.wishes

Burton Road Car Park

• Address: Burton Road Car Park, Loughton, IG10 3ST
• What3Words location: rush.jets.notion

Oakwood Hill East car park

• Address: Oakwood Hill East car park, Loughton IG10 3TZ
• What3words location: nails.enjoyable.farmer

Traps Hill car park

• Address: Traps Hill car park, Loughton IG10 1SZ
• What3words location: drops.soccer.charge

Visit www.instavolt.co.uk for pricing and other information.

Private sector chargers

Bakers Arms/Premier Inn, Sewardstone

• Address: The Grange, Sewardstone Road EN9 3QF

BP Debden

• Address: The Broadway IG10 3ST

BP Harlow Gate

• Address: Potter Street, Harlow CM17 9AG

Epping Forest Shopping Park

• Address: Langston Rd, Loughton IG10 3UE

Harlow Water Gardens

• Address: Water Gardens Shopping Centre, Harlow, Essex, CM20 1AN

Lidl Waltham Abbey

• Address: Cartersfield Road, Waltham Abbey EN9 1JD

Morrisons Loughton

• Address: 246 High Road, Loughton IG10 1HW

North Weald Bassett service station

• Address: 215 High Street, North Weald CM16 6ED

Plants Galore Roydon

• Hamlet Hill, Roydon CM19 5JY

Shell Buckhurst Hill

• Address: 18-22 High Road, Buckhurst Hill IG9 5HP

Shell Epping

• Address: 24-36 High St, Epping CM16 4AE

Three Jolly Wheelers

• Address: 735 Chigwell Road IG8 8AS

Tesco Epping

• Address: 77-79 High Street, Epping, CM16 4BA

Tesco Waltham Abbey

• Address: Sewardstone Rd, Waltham Abbey EN9 1JH

Find a charge point near you

• Zap Map
• Plugshare
• Or use Apps or websites of individual networks

Off-street EV charging

We are working hard to maximise the use of our own land and assets to provide EV charging:

1. Rapid 120kWh chargers supplied by Instavolt – Available now in car parks at Oakwood Hill East and Bansons Lane, Ongar. Among the fastest in Essex and ideal for anyone on the go, but especially higher local mileage residents and businesses (taxis, minicabs and businesses with a light commercial van fleet).
2. Delivering EV charging to Council Housing areas – Pilots planned to provide EV charging in social housing areas in Waltham Abbey including conversion of empty lockup garages to EV charging bays for residents. We think it is unfair that only those who can afford homes with off-street parking and access to things like higher rate tax breaks account for most new EV purchases.
3. EV charging at other car parks – within the next 2 years, we should see a number of other car parks with fast or overnight charging facilities. Most do not have the available power supply for rapid chargers, but they can plug the cost and speed gap between ‘premium’ rapid chargers and charging using your domestic power supply.
4. EV charging built into major new developments – starting with Epping’s Qualis developments, we will see public EV charging in the multi-storey car park and then in all major housing schemes across the district, some open to non-residents.
5. Coming at little or no cost to residents – Instavolt’s business model generates site rental and profit share for us. It involves no upfront costs for survey, installation etc. All the other proposals above involve grant funding and/or Section 106 contributions from developers or other match funding sources
6. Electrifying our own fleet – fleet vehicle charging is available at all our sites and we currently have switched 30 vehicles to electric or plug-in hybrid models. Our Civic Centre has ‘Vehicle to Grid’ chargers as part of a national pilot which help reduce the building’s energy costs whilst charging our fleet.

On-street EV charging

This is the responsibility of Essex County Council. They are still finalising their strategy in this area but one thing unlikely in Essex is the use of street lights to supply overnight EV charging.

Want to know more

If you want to know more about our EV activities, or to register interest in more off-street charging options near you:

• Email transport@eppingforestdc.gov.uk

If you want to know more about on-street charging, visit the Essex County Council electric vehicles page where there is an enquiries email address.

If you want to contact your county councillor you can search for your county councillor using your postcode.