As we motor towards a future of electric cars replacing petrol and diesel, charging points and associated infrastructure are appearing in car parks, on forecourts and outside offices.
We’ve also got Approved Document S: Infrastructure for the charging of electrical vehicles, which supports Part S of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 and takes effect in June this year.
It’s thorough to the point of long-windedness, but it doesn’t really plug into the issue which will affect one driver in every five – how accessible are the new charging points?
The AA is on the case and its President, Edmund King, recently issued a reminder that the points need to be accessible, and his organisation is working with others to set out what is required.
Yet for all its specifications the new document is so thin on detail for users as to make you wonder how far down the road they are with this and how committed they are. Or maybe they’re further than we think and are close to announcing something really sensational like a plug-in which enables you to charge your car from your phone!
In the main the document concerns itself with setting out the requirements and regulations around the need for a new building which is not residential or mixed use to have access to an electric vehicle charging point. Essentially if there are more than 10 parking spaces then one should have a charging point.
With an eye on the future the requirement extends to installing cable routes for a minimum one-fifth of the remaining parking spaces, so a car park with 11 spaces should have one charging point immediately and cabling in place to enable at least two more.
There are caveats around whether the parking bays are under cover or in the open, and around the extent to which the regulations apply to buildings undergoing major renovation.
That’s defined as work being done on the car park, such as resurfacing, the electrical infrastructure of the car park or the building itself if it has a car park inside. There are further definitions around calculating the cost of the work, because if the charging points cost more than seven per cent of the overall renovation work there’s an exemption.
The section on the minimum standards of an electric vehicle charging point looks at power output, circuits and compatibility but it’s only when you get to the bit about suitable locations for the points that you find a reference to accessibility.
The document states that where a building has accessible bays then at least one of them should have a charging point or a future connection location. There are diagrams indicating the possible arrangement of charging points for accessible bays and readers are referred to Approved Document M to check the standards for accessible parking bays.
But that’s it, so any designers and developers looking for clues in Approved Document S would be well advised to keep an eye on the findings of the AA and its partners, because that is where the detail is likely to come from and, as ever, it’s always best to anticipate the impact of changes rather than try to react to them.
The AA reported that a survey which it conducted last year in partnership with market research specialists Yonder found that 73 per cent of respondents said charging point spaces should be wheelchair friendly and 79 per cent said charging point design should consider users with limited mobility and/or physical disabilities.
The Motability charity has been working on the issue of electric vehicles for several months in conjunction with another disability charity Designability, the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV). The expectation is that this collaboration will result in national standards that set a minimum level of accessibility for electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Motability recently quoted estimates that by 2035 there will be 2.7 million UK drivers or passengers with a disability, with half reliant on public charging.
Edmund King spoke on the challenges and requirements when he addressed the EV Infrastructure Summit in January.
He made the point that charging posts need to be well-lit, close to amenities, with space around the vehicle to allow people to use walking or mobility aids. He added that it is also essential that the instructions, screen, and cables can be easily viewed and used from a sitting and standing position.
He also emphasised how important it is that disabled people are not left behind in the transition to electric vehicles and that infrastructure providers build accessibility into charge point design at the start to avoid expensive retrofitting.
