Parking and travel
Electric vehicles
The future is here. Electric vehicles (EVs) are taking an increasing share of the new vehicle market. At March 2022 the Epping Forest district had the highest number of battery-only EVs (BEV) on the roads of all Essex districts, and the growth curve is steeply upward. BEV plus London electric cabs owned locally now exceed 1,000 vehicles, plus more than 600 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.
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.
We are aware of additional chargers coming this year including in areas of high EV adoption, but no public chargers including Epping and Buckhurst Hill. Check the ZapMap site regularly for new chargers coming on stream.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. 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.
Private Sector Chargers
The public sector cannot provide all public chargers. To date there are a few rapid and ‘fast’ (7kWh) chargers at selected supermarkets and filling stations locally. We are aware of additional chargers coming this year including in areas of high EV adoption, but no public chargers including Epping and Buckhurst Hill.
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:
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.