“You cannot run private charging cables across public roads, pavements and paths.” That sentence, on Hertfordshire County Council’s electric vehicle page, read again on 19 October 2026, settles the first question for a Hertford home with no drive. The council is the highway authority for the town’s streets, and it gives its reasons: a trailing cable would create an obstruction and trip hazard, would breach electrical safety standards and is unlikely to be covered by public liability insurance.
That leaves three routes to look at: a cross-pavement channel, a lamp column, and the public network the county is planning. This guide takes each in turn as it stands for SG13 and SG14. If you do have a space you control, our page on EV charger installation in Hertford covers the home charger itself.
Cable covers and gullies: not yet
The county does not currently permit cable covers or recessed cable channels, often called gullies, citing liability and maintenance issues. For a Hertford terrace, that rules out a cable protector laid across the pavement as well as a loose cable. In February 2025 its Highways and Transport Cabinet Panel agreed in principle to permit cross-pavement channels, but only if the resources to manage them are secured, not until the electric vehicle strategy has been updated and approved, and only under circumstances the updated strategy will set out. The page says this may take time and that updates will be published there.
The strategy itself is under review. The county notes that it was published before 20 May 2025, under the previous administration, and is being checked against current guidance and its corporate plan. Any change in the rules for SG13 and SG14 will come through that revised strategy.
The channel trial, and why Hertford is outside it
There is one place where channels are already allowed. The county’s cross-pavement channel licence page says the trial is run in partnership with St Albans City and District Council and that a property must be in St Albans postcode AL1, AL2, AL3, AL4 or AL5. Hertford’s SG13 and SG14 are not on that list, so the national on-street grant of up to £500, which needs an approved cross-pavement solution under the council’s rules, does not help a Hertford terrace at present. If the trial is extended, that page is where it will show.
Lamp columns: allowed, but difficult
The county does allow electric vehicle charging from its streetlights, and says in the same breath that it is difficult in Hertfordshire. Many columns are older stock, so they lack the space or electrical capacity for chargers, and many stand at the back of the footpath rather than at the kerb. It is looking at streetlight connections where possible, and says that depends on the type of light, its power supply, local grid capacity, parking restrictions and where the column stands. On the county’s description, streetlight charging is part of its public network planning with the district councils, not something a householder arranges for one column.
The public network coming to East Hertfordshire
This is the route most likely to reach Hertford’s terraced streets. The government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund has given the county £6,015,000 of capital funding for chargepoints, especially for residents without off-street parking. The county has split the work into three areas, and East Hertfordshire sits in Area 3 with Broxbourne and Stevenage, where the contract has gone to Urban Fox. Sites are being assessed and residents will be consulted.
The county says it will mostly install slow, low-power chargers below 8 kW, because these offer cheaper energy tariffs, and that it expects operators to install chargepoints in phases from early 2027. It prioritises streets where residents have no driveways or off-street parking, where there is no nearby off-street car park and where no public chargepoint is within about five minutes’ walk or 400 m. A Hertford terraced street with no drives and no public point within 400 m fits the first of those tests; one beside a town-centre car park may not. The county cannot provide a chargepoint on demand, but you can propose a location and it will go into its mapping data.
Until then: the chargers that already exist
The county quotes the Department for Transport’s count of 2,569 public chargepoints in Hertfordshire on 1 July 2026, in public and business car parks, petrol stations and on-street bays. It advises checking maximum stay limits and parking fees. It also points to services that let neighbours rent each other’s home chargepoints. Across East Hertfordshire, DVLA records 5,327 privately kept plug-in vehicles at the end of June 2026, up from 3,882 a year earlier; the count is of vehicles, not chargers or households.
Hertford’s terraces and flats: who has a space
In ONS’s Census 2021 figures for Hertford’s built-up area, 29.8% of households lived in a terraced house and 30.5% in a flat, maisonette or apartment, the largest single group. Streets of 19th-century terraces such as Port Vale and George Street are the kind this guide is written for: where a house has no space of its own, the three routes above are the ones that apply.
With 30.5% of Hertford households in flats, maisonettes or apartments, flats are often a different case, because an allocated bay in a car park is off-street parking. With the freeholder’s agreement, a charger can go on the building or a post by the bay, and the OZEV grant can pay 75% of the purchase and installation cost, up to £500 per socket, for people who own and live in a flat or rent one. Our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant sets out each case. Grant claims must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage.
Where a terrace does have a rear garage or a space at the back, the county’s summary says planning permission might be needed if the chargepoint will be near a road or a listed building. Hertford’s conservation area was first designated in 1967, so on an older street that is worth checking with East Herts Council first. Our home EV charger installation page explains the kit, and if you are weighing up the roof instead, see solar panels in Hertford.
Sources: Hertfordshire County Council, Electric vehicle charging in Hertfordshire (https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/highways-roads-and-pavements/news-and-campaigns/electric-vehicles.aspx) and Electric vehicle cross-pavement charging cable licence (https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/highways-roads-and-pavements/changes-to-your-road/cross-pavement-channel/cross-pavement-channel.aspx), both read 19 October 2026 (neither shows a last-updated date); Department for Transport, public chargepoint count for Hertfordshire, 1 July 2026, as quoted by the county; DfT and DVLA, VEH0142 licensed plug-in vehicles, private keepers, East Hertfordshire, 2026 Q2 and 2025 Q2 (published 23 September 2026); ONS, Towns and cities, characteristics of built-up areas, Census 2021 (table 5c), Hertford; East Herts Council, Hertford Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan (adopted 1 March 2017); GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026).