Most of Haslemere parks on a drive, but not all of it. In the two Haslemere wards, 14.5% of households lived in terraced houses at the 2021 Census, many around Shottermill, Critchmere and the streets off the town centre, and a good share of those have nowhere to park but the road. If that is you, the question is not which charger but whether a cable can reach the car at all. Our page on getting an EV charger for a Haslemere home covers the drive-and-garage case; this post covers the street.
For a Haslemere terrace, the short answer is that Surrey County Council has a written position, a paid route across the footway and a public alternative. We re-read the council’s page on 19 October 2026; it is marked as reviewed on 1 October 2026.
What Surrey County Council allows
The council is plain about it. Its page says trailing a cable across the pavement is not allowed in Surrey, that trailing a loose cable or running one through a protective mat is not permitted, and that it does not permit cable mats across the pavement at all. A charging cable may cross a public footpath only if it is safely enclosed in a cable gully. That rules out the extension lead from a front window, however neatly it is covered, on every Haslemere street the county maintains.
The cable gully route, and what it costs
The gully is a covered channel set into the footway, run by the council in partnership with Kerbo Charge. You pay a subsidised £499 installation fee, which includes a £100 non-refundable deposit. From year 3, you pay £4.99 a month to Kerbo Charge to keep using the gully. If the property is rejected after the site assessment, the council says £399 of the fee would be refunded at its discretion.
Three conditions decide most applications. The footway outside must be a fully paved surface up to the kerb. You must be able to park safely and legally on the street in front of your property, without parking on the footway. And you must own the property, or have written permission from your landlord, which matters in Haslemere, where 15.8% of households in the two wards rent privately. The charger itself then goes on your front wall, wired back to your consumer unit like any other home charger.
Will your street qualify?
That depends on the footway, not the postcode. A paved pavement with legal kerbside parking outside the door is the case the scheme is built for. A grass verge between pavement and kerb, a stretch where cars park half on the footway, or a road with no legal parking in front of the house are the cases it cannot serve, and Kerbo Charge’s site assessment is where that is decided. In the Haslemere Town Centre Conservation Area, around High Street, Petworth Road and Lower Street, many buildings are listed, so a unit on the front wall is a question for Waverley Borough Council’s conservation team before anything is fixed.
A change to the national rules on 21 October 2026
The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026 comes into force on 21 October 2026. From that date, the permitted development right for a wall-mounted charger extends beyond off-street parking areas to other parts of a house’s curtilage, with conditions. On a wall that immediately adjoins a highway, the outlet must not protrude more than 0.2 m and must leave at least 1.5 m of footway to the carriageway edge. Where a footway lies between outlet and car, the cable must cross it through a cross-pavement solution authorised by the highway authority, which in Haslemere is Surrey County Council. That extended right does not apply in a conservation area, so on the town-centre streets the planning question stays with Waverley.
The on-street grant
For a Shottermill or Critchmere household with on-street parking only, OZEV offers up to £500 towards a chargepoint installed with an approved cross-pavement solution, subject to the council’s rules, which in Haslemere means Surrey’s gully scheme. The scheme runs to 31 March 2027. Claims must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage. Our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant covers the conditions in full. A home chargepoint carries 20% VAT either way.
When a gully is not possible: public charging
If the footway outside a Haslemere home fails the test, Surrey’s on-street rollout is the alternative. The council has a contract with Connected Kerb to install public charge points across the county: standard 7 kW points, slower 3 to 5 kW lamp-post points where bollard points are not feasible, and rapid 50 kW-plus points on a case-by-case basis. Residents can ask for a public on-street point in a particular spot through the council’s interactive map, hosted on Commonplace. A lamp-post point charges more slowly than a 7 kW home charger, so it suits a car that can stay plugged in for long spells.
Flats and shared parking
For the 18.4% of Haslemere households in purpose-built flats, the street is rarely the answer. If the block has private or allocated bays, the freeholder or managing agent decides, and flat owners and renters with that parking can get 75% of the cost up to £500. The supply side, SSEN Distribution’s network in Haslemere and your main fuse, is covered on our home EV charger installation page. If the house has its own roof, solar panels in Haslemere sets out what it would generate under the town’s trees.
Sources: Surrey County Council, Electric vehicles and our on-street chargepoint rollout (surreycc.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/sustainable/electric-vehicles), reviewed 1 October 2026, read 19 October 2026; ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS054, Haslemere Critchmere and Shottermill (E05007434) and Haslemere East and Grayswood (E05007435) wards, via Nomis; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026, S.I. 2026/1056, article 4 (legislation.gov.uk, read 19 October 2026); Waverley Borough Council, Haslemere Town Centre Conservation Area Appraisal (adopted October 2014); NESO, GIS boundaries for GB DNO licence areas (May 2024).