Just 2.3 per cent of the UK’s on-street electric car chargers have been designed to accommodate the needs of disabled people, according to a survey of 223 local councils.
The results published by the Vauxhall Electric Streets of Britain campaign show that only 450 of the 19,546 on-street chargers within council jurisdictions have been “adapted specifically for the considerations of disabled drivers”.
The campaign added that the government and the charge point industry insisted that the introduction of the PAS 1899 accessibility standard in 2022 would mark a turning point in the provision of disabled access.
However the campaign’s report says the reality is that just 238 (1.2 per cent) of public chargers identified in the survey conform to the government-backed voluntary guidance, and only 105 (0.5 per cent) of the over 19,000 chargers identified in the survey were located in a disabled parking bay.
Auto Express said it first exposed inadequacies in the PAS 1899 draft regulations in May 2022 but that the government resisted calls for mandatory regulation, insisting the voluntary approach would be sufficient to improve the dire outlook for disabled EV users.
A spokesperson for Auto Express said the latest data suggests the government’s confidence was misplaced, but added that EV charge infrastructure trade body ChargeUK refused to comment on whether the lack of progress on accessible charging indicates that mandatory regulation is required.
Auto Express added that currently there are over 16 million people living in the UK that are identified as ‘disabled’, with Motability estimating that 1.35 million disabled drivers will be relying on public EV charging infrastructure by 2035.
James Taylor, managing director of Vauxhall, told Auto Express that “accessibility is an area of electric vehicle charging infrastructure which requires immediate attention.”
Auto Express said it started campaigning for the country’s EV charging network to be accessible to disabled users in 2021. It added that lobby group Disability Rights UK is among those calling for accessibility standards to be made mandatory.
Dan White, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, told Auto Express: “We have been leading on the effects of climate change on the disabled community for three years and still the opportunities for us to be part of a pushback against global warming are being restricted by a lack of inclusive planning and a seat at the table when policy and design are discussed.
“Accessibility standards must be enshrined in law. As more disabled drivers switch to electric vehicles, they are finding their freedom to drive as restricted as their current basic human rights as many charging points cannot be accessed.”
“We have already seen many blue badge bays removed for charging points. It surely makes logical and ethical sense to have a design standard of charger that anyone can use, designed by all who would need to use it? Otherwise, a mass retrofit is on the cards and disabled drivers are further stripped of their rights to travel.”
