In most towns, the first question about a home charger is technical. In Redhill it is often legal: who has to say yes. Flats are the single biggest housing type in the Redhill East and Redhill West & Wray Common wards, 36.9% of households at the 2021 Census, and more than a third of households rent. For a flat owner, a tenant or a shared owner, the consent comes before the survey. Our page on fitting an EV charger in Redhill covers the technical side; this post covers permission and the grants that go with it.
The good news for Redhill is that its flat owners and the 38.2% of ward households who rent (our arithmetic on the Census figures) are exactly the households the remaining government grants are aimed at. Owner-occupiers of houses get nothing; flat owners, renters and landlords can.
Redhill’s tenure, and why consent comes first
The two Redhill wards counted 8,005 households in 2021. Of those, 26.5% owned outright, 32.5% had a mortgage, 2.7% were in shared ownership, 24.5% rented privately and 13.7% rented socially. Across the whole of Reigate and Banstead borough, by comparison, 71.1% of 59,849 households owned their home, 15.7% rented privately, 11.5% rented socially and 1.6% were in shared ownership. So Redhill has noticeably more renters and shared owners than the borough as a whole, and nearly twice the share of purpose-built flats found in the three Horley wards (19.5%). That changes the order of events: consent, then survey, then quote.
Owning a leasehold flat: the freeholder and the bay
If you own a leasehold flat at The Rise on Marketfield Way, one of the 150 apartments completed in July 2023, or in one of the older town-centre blocks, two things decide whether a charger is possible. The first is parking: the grant needs private off-street or allocated parking, so an unallocated space in a shared car park does not qualify on its own. The second is the freeholder or managing agent, whose written agreement you need for anything fixed to the building or the car park, and for the cable route back to your flat’s consumer unit or a supply serving your bay. Read the alterations clause in your lease and ask early: a managing agent may want to plan chargers for the whole block rather than one bay at a time.
Renting: the landlord’s written agreement
A charger is a fixed electrical installation, so a tenant needs the landlord’s written agreement, whether the home is a Victorian terrace near St John’s or a town-centre flat. With private off-street or allocated parking, renters can get 75% of the cost up to £500 per socket. Landlords can claim separately, up to £500 per socket for up to 200 sockets a year, which may suit an owner of several Redhill lets planning chargers across them. Social tenants, 13.7% of the wards’ households, should start with their housing provider, which owns the decision.
Shared ownership
Shared owners, 2.7% of households in Redhill’s two wards and 969 households across Reigate and Banstead, sit between the two cases: you live there and own a share, but the housing association owns the rest and is usually the freeholder. Its agreement is needed before any work, on the same footing as a freeholder’s.
The OZEV grants that fit these homes
For a Redhill flat with an allocated bay, or a let house with a drive, the grants as changed from 1 April 2026 are: 75% of the purchase and installation cost, up to £500 per socket, for renters and for people who own and live in a flat, with private off-street or allocated parking; up to £500 per socket for residential landlords; and up to £500 towards a chargepoint with an approved cross-pavement solution for households with on-street parking only, subject to the council’s rules. They run to 31 March 2027. Claims must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage. Who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant sets out the paperwork. A home chargepoint carries 20% VAT whoever pays.
The supply in a block or a conversion
Once consent is in place, the technical questions are the usual ones with a Redhill twist. A 7 kW charger draws 32 A continuously, and most homes have a 60 A, 80 A or 100 A main fuse. On the smaller sizes, load management, a sensor that slows the charger while other loads run, is what usually avoids an upgrade. Redhill is on UK Power Networks’ South Eastern network. UK Power Networks says it can upgrade a main fuse from 30 or 60 A to 80 or 100 A, and that a looped supply, shared with a neighbouring property, has to be re-planned with both households and may carry a charge. In a house split into flats, that second household is a neighbour on the same stairs, which is one more reason to raise the charger with them early.
Before you ask for a quote
Gather four things: your lease or tenancy agreement, the freeholder’s, landlord’s or housing association’s written agreement, proof that your bay is private or allocated to you, and a photo of the consumer unit. If the block’s car park is a long way from your flat, a note of where the bay is helps us price the cable route. The EV charger installation cost guide shows how those items build up. If you own a house with its own roof rather than a flat, our page on solar panels in Redhill covers what the roof could add.
Sources: ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS054, Redhill East (E05012882) and Redhill West & Wray Common (E05012883) wards, via Nomis; ONS Census 2021, TS054 tenure, Reigate and Banstead (E07000211), Nomis API (dataset NM_2072_1), read 19 October 2026; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, The Rise, Marketfield Way; UK Power Networks, main fuse upgrades and looped supplies; UK Power Networks, licence boundaries (Open Data Portal, December 2024).