Flat owners thinking of switching to an electric vehicle (EV) got a nice surprise in September as the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) revealed what new chargepoint grants for landlords and leaseholders will look like.
In 2022 the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, launched for householders in 2019, will be extended to anyone living in a flat or rental accommodation with dedicated off-street parking and a qualifying vehicle. The new EVHS will fund up to £350 of the cost of installing an EV chargepoint and only one application can be made per person.
Building owners, landlords and social housing providers can also apply for an EVHS grant to fund their chargepoint installation. Up to £350 is available per socket and applicants will be limited to 200 applications per year. There is also additional help for owners of apartment blocks to provision the building’s associated parking with chargepoints. Up to £30,000 will be available per building towards the cost of installing chargepoints, with a limit of 30 applications per year per applicant. The size of the grant will depend on how many parking bays are being provisioned with either a chargepoint socket (up to £850 available per bay) or supporting infrastructure for a chargepoint to be installed at a later date (up to £500 available per bay).
Jamie Willsdon, Director of EV consultancy Future Fuel, is delighted that building owners and residents are getting help from the Government to make blocks EV-friendly, as he believes the leasehold sector has been left behind in the past.
“We’ve been lobbying the Department of Transport to make it easier for blocks to install chargepoints for more than two years,” he says. “This announcement is a major step in the right direction, especially the move to incentivise future-proofing of blocks. I hope building owners and leaseholders will full take advantage of the new funding”.
The funding scheme will be delivered through a new digital platform for OZEV chargepoint grants to be made available in early 2022.
