In much of the country, a house without a drive cannot have a home charger, because there is no safe way to get the cable from the house to the car. Godalming is different. Surrey County Council runs a cable gully scheme: a narrow channel set into the pavement that carries the cable from your front wall to the kerb. For a terrace in the town centre, Farncombe or Holloway with the car on the street, that opens a route that many towns lack. This guide reads Surrey’s own page, reviewed on 1 October 2026 and read by us on 19 October 2026, and sets out what it requires.
For homes with a drive, and for the fuse and grant questions, see our Godalming EV charger installation page.
Who decides about the pavement
In Godalming the pavement outside your house is not Waverley Borough Council’s to decide on; Surrey County Council is the highway authority. Surrey’s position is clear on two points. It does not permit cable mats across the pavement. And it does not allow independent installers to supply and fit cable gullies on the public highway: the gully is fitted by the council’s contractor through its own scheme.
That matters for the 18.4% of households across Godalming’s five wards who live in terraces (our sum of the 2021 Census ward figures), and for some of the semis and town-centre houses without off-street space. Across Waverley, DVLA records 5,670 privately kept plug-in vehicles at the end of June 2026, up from 4,375 a year earlier.
The conditions on Surrey’s list
Surrey’s page sets out the eligibility conditions. In summary:
- the footway outside is maintained as public highway at public expense by Surrey County Council, not a private road or private land;
- the footway is fully paved up to the kerb, with no grass or unpaved verge between;
- you can park safely and legally on the street in front of the property, without parking on the footway, and within one car length of the gully;
- no part of the gully or your car will be within 2.5 m of other charging cars or of powered street furniture such as lamp posts or illuminated signs while charging;
- there is space on the pavement in front of the property clear of utility covers, and no exposed tree roots in the footway;
- a home charger can be fitted to the front of the property;
- you own the property, or have written permission from the landlord;
- you use or have ordered an electric vehicle covered by cable trip liability insurance.
On Godalming’s town-centre and Farncombe streets, the verge, the utility covers and the distance from a lamp post are the conditions to check first. An on-street space is not reserved for you, so the scheme works where you can usually park in front of the house.
The steps, the fee and the running cost
Surrey’s process has four steps. First, an initial check with Kerbo Charge, the council’s partner; the council says not to go further until Kerbo Charge confirms the application is suitable. Second, an online application to the council with the Kerbo Charge reference and an approved photo, which is where you pay the £499 subsidised installation fee, including a £100 non-refundable deposit. Third, a site inspection, normally within four weeks; if the site is unsuitable the application is rejected, and £399 may be refunded at the council’s discretion. Fourth, the contractor aims to fit the gully within six weeks, with at least a week’s notice.
The council gives a two-year warranty from installation. From year three you pay Kerbo Charge £4.99 a month to keep using the gully, which is about £59.88 a year (our arithmetic). The £499 covers the gully; Surrey’s page does not say it includes a charger.
The charger on the front wall
The gully only works with a charger on the front of the house, and that is where Godalming’s history comes in. 125 listed buildings stand in the Town Centre Conservation Area, and five more conservation areas sit in and around the town, from Ockford Road to Crown Pits. Surrey itself notes that installing a home charger at a property without off-street parking may require planning permission, and tells residents to contact their district or borough council. For Godalming that is Waverley Borough Council: speak to its planners before you pay a deposit, particularly for a listed building, where fixing anything to the fabric may need listed building consent.
In Godalming the charger is a normal home installation on its own circuit from the consumer unit. We fit the EnSmart SmartBee-M, a 7 kW unit, and a socketed version keeps the street elevation tidier. The town centre sits in SSEN’s Southern Electric Power Distribution area, about 1.6 km from UK Power Networks’ network, so check your operator by postcode; the installer notifies whichever it is. Prices for the installation are explained on our EV charger installation cost page.
Where a gully will not work: public chargers
Some Godalming streets will fail the list: an unpaved verge, a lamp post too close, or no legal parking in front. Surrey’s public network is the alternative. The council says there were only six on-street charge point sockets across Surrey in 2020 and over 200 by October 2024, and in February 2023 it signed a contract with Connected Kerb to install thousands of public chargepoints across the county over five years. Some are slower 3 to 5 kW lamp-post chargers, used where bollard chargers are not feasible.
The grant side
OZEV offers up to £500 towards a chargepoint installed with an approved cross-pavement solution, subject to the council’s rules, and the schemes run to 31 March 2027. Surrey says it has been awarded funding from the government’s Electric Vehicle Pavement Channels Grant to support a wider deployment of gullies. The OZEV claim must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer, so tell us your situation at the quote stage, and see our guide to the EV chargepoint grant. A charger installation carries 20% VAT. If you are also thinking about the roof, see our page on solar panels in Godalming.
Sources: Surrey County Council, Electric vehicles and our on-street chargepoint rollout, Cable gully installations (page reviewed 1 October 2026, read 19 October 2026): https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/sustainable-driving/electric-vehicles; ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS054, Godalming’s five 2022 wards, via Nomis (read 16 October 2026); DfT and DVLA, VEH0142, privately kept, end of June 2026 and 2025 (published 23 September 2026); Waverley Borough Council conservation areas and listed buildings (as cited on our Godalming battery page); GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6; NESO, GIS boundaries for GB DNO licence areas (May 2024).