Parking and travel
Electric vehicles
The future is here. Electric vehicles (EVs) are taking an increasing share of the new vehicle market. At December 2021 the Epping Forest district has the second highest number of battery-only EVs on the roads of all Essex districts, and the growth curve is steeply upward.
The vast majority of these are owned by residents or businesses with off-street parking. We estimate that at least 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.
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 to Ultra Low Emission Vehicles by 2025, and working towards becoming a carbon-neutral district by 2030.
Anyone looking at Zap Map – Find a charge point near you will see that Essex as a whole and Epping Forest district have too few public EV charging points to meet this demand.
Find a charge point
Oakwood Hill East car park
- Address: Oakwood Hill East car park, Loughton IG10 3TZ
- What3words location: nails.enjoyable.farmer
Visit www.instavolt.co.uk for pricing and other information.
Zap Map
Off-street EV charging
We are working hard to maximise the use of our own land and assets to provide EV charging:
- Rapid 120kWh chargers supplied by Instavolt – Available now at Oakwood Hill East car park, Loughton IG10 3TZ. 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). You can grab a coffee nearby while you wait and it is yards from our popular MoT station, so you can charge up after your test
- Pilot of conversion of empty garages to EV charging bays – We are applying for a grant from OZEV/ORCS scheme to convert empty garages in the Ninefields Estate in Waltham Abbey to ‘fast’ or overnight neighbourhood charging spaces. 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
- EV charging at other car parks – within the next 2 to 3 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
- 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.
- 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
- 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
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.
We have joined their multi-district on-street charging bid to OZEV/ORCS which could see up to 6 on-street charging bays in the district. Sites in Loughton, Chigwell, Epping and Buckhurst Hill have been proposed.
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:
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.