Most Potters Bar households can charge on their own drive. In the built-up area, 46.5% of households live in semis and 17.7% in detached houses (Census 2021). This guide is for the rest: the 12.5% in terraces and the 23.2% in flats or maisonettes, many of whom park on the street. For them the answer depends less on the charger than on which council’s rules apply to the pavement outside.
If you do have a drive or a garage, our main page on EV charger installation in Potters Bar covers the charger, the fuse and the supply. Here we deal with the pavement.
Which council owns your pavement?
Potters Bar sits on a council boundary. ONS postcode data places the EN6 district in four council areas: Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield, Broxbourne and the London Borough of Enfield. For a Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield or Broxbourne address, the highway authority is Hertfordshire County Council. For an address on the Enfield side, it is Enfield Council. That one fact decides whether a cable from your house to a car on the street can ever be lawful.
The Hertfordshire position
Hertfordshire County Council’s electric vehicles page, read on 19 October 2026, is direct: you cannot run private charging cables across public roads, pavements and paths.
The county does run an approved alternative, a cross-pavement channel, but only as a trial with St Albans City and District Council for postcodes AL1 to AL5. Its page sets out what that trial involves: a non-refundable £200 assessment fee, installation normally £1,200 including a subsidy from the Pavement Channel Grant, a road the county maintains, no dropped kerb, drive or other off-street parking at the house, 2 metres from trees, 10 metres from a junction and 11 metres from street lights and similar equipment. In St Albans, the district council then requires planning permission for the chargepoint. None of that reaches EN6 at present, and the page does not mention any other district.
The Enfield-side exception
An EN6 address in the London Borough of Enfield comes under a different scheme. Enfield Council’s footway channel, read on its own page on 19 October 2026, is now available across the borough. It is a self-closing duct set flush into the pavement, so a cable can run from your house to the car without a trip hazard.
The council’s conditions are specific. You must live in a house, not a flat, and own it or have your landlord’s approval. The footway must be hard-surfaced, with no trees or root zones in the route, and the cable must be at least 2.5 metres from electrical street furniture such as lamp columns. There can be no double yellow lines, zig-zags or other no-waiting restrictions outside, and the channel cannot serve a car on the opposite side of the road. The council aims to assess within six weeks and install within eight weeks once the installation is paid for, and it charges a £124 application fee (waived with a Blue Badge), a year-one licence and installation from £1,230 for a 2.5 m channel, less a £480 subsidy, and £107 a year to renew. It gives you no reserved space, and it says not to install a home charger before the channel is approved.
The national rules are changing, but not the pavement rule
A national change to the planning rules for home chargers comes into force on 21 October 2026. The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026 extends the permitted development right for a wall-mounted charging outlet beyond off-street parking areas to other parts of a house’s curtilage, outside conservation areas. It attaches a condition: where there is a footway between the outlet and the car, the charging cable must cross it through a cross-pavement solution installed by, or with the authorisation of, the highway authority. On the Hertsmere side of Potters Bar, that brings you back to the county, which has no channel scheme for EN6. The Royds, designated in 2000 with an Article 4 direction confirmed in July 2015, is a conservation area, so check with Hertsmere before relying on any permitted development right there.
Public on-street charging
For drivers with no route to a home charger, the county’s plan is on-street chargepoints. Its page says Believ has been assigned to Hertsmere, Dacorum, Three Rivers and Watford, Zest to St Albans, North Hertfordshire and Welwyn Hatfield, and Urban Fox to Broxbourne, East Hertfordshire and Stevenage. It expects installations in phases from early 2027, says surveys do not guarantee a chargepoint, and cites £6,015,000 of capital funding from the government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund. You can propose a location through the county’s site.
Grants for on-street households
Households with on-street parking only can get up to £500 towards a chargepoint installed with an approved cross-pavement solution, subject to the council’s rules. In practice that means the Enfield side of EN6 today. Our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant covers the detail; the claim must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer, so tell us your situation at the quote stage.
If you are in a flat
Neither channel scheme covers flats. A charger at a Potters Bar flat needs a private or allocated space and the freeholder’s consent for the cable route and fixing. Our page on home EV charger installation explains the charger, and if you own the house and are thinking about panels as well, our page on solar panels in Potters Bar covers the roof.
Sources: ONS, Towns and cities: characteristics of built-up areas, Census 2021 (table 5c, Potters Bar E63004573); postcodes.io outcode lookup for EN6 (ONS Postcode Directory data); Hertfordshire County Council, Electric vehicle charging in Hertfordshire (https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/electricvehicles, read 19 October 2026); Hertfordshire County Council, Cross-pavement channel (https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/highways-roads-and-pavements/changes-to-your-road/cross-pavement-channel/, read 19 October 2026); St Albans City and District Council, Electric vehicle cross-pavement charging cable licence scheme (https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/electric-vehicle-cross-pavement-charging-cable-licence-scheme, read 19 October 2026); London Borough of Enfield, Footway channel for electric vehicle charging on the roadside (https://www.enfield.gov.uk/services/roads-and-transport/footway-channel-for-electric-vehicle-charging-on-the-roadside, read 19 October 2026); The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026 (S.I. 2026/1056), legislation.gov.uk, read 19 October 2026; Hertsmere Borough Council, Royds Conservation Area, Potters Bar; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026).