Most Reigate households park on their own drive, and for them a charger is a wall-mounted job. This guide is for the rest: the terraces nearer the town centre, and other homes where the car sits on the street outside. Across Reigate and Banstead, 9,596 of the borough’s 59,849 households live in terraced houses (Census 2021), about 16% (our arithmetic), and many of those in the town centre have no off-street space. For homes with a drive, our page on EV charger installation in Reigate covers the usual job.
The first thing to know is what you cannot do. Surrey County Council, which is the highway authority for Reigate, says plainly that trailing a cable across the pavement is not allowed in Surrey. A cable protector or a ramp does not change that. What the council offers instead is a cable gully. We read its electric vehicles page on 19 October 2026; the page shows it was last reviewed on 1 October 2026.
What a cable gully is
A gully is a narrow channel installed in the pavement, running from the front of your property to the kerb. The charging cable sits in the channel while the car charges, so it does not lie across the footway. The charger is on your property, and the car is parked on the street close to the gully.
Does your Reigate street qualify?
The council’s conditions, as its page sets them out:
- The footway must be maintained by the council and fully paved up to the kerb.
- You must be able to park legally within one car length of the gully.
- There must be no utility covers or exposed tree roots in the footway where the gully would go.
- You must own the property, or have your landlord’s permission.
- You need an electric vehicle, and cover for cable trip liability.
- It must be possible to fit a home charger at the property.
Several of those are worth checking from the pavement before you go further. A footway that ends in a grass verge, a manhole cover in the obvious spot, or parking that is restricted outside your door would each stop the application.
The steps, in order
- Suitability check with Kerbo Charge. The council asks you to start here, and to apply only once Kerbo Charge has confirmed your property looks suitable.
- Apply to the council and pay. The subsidised fee is £499, which includes a £100 non-refundable deposit.
- Inspection. The council normally inspects within 4 weeks of the application. If the site turns out to be unsuitable, £399 may be refunded at the council’s discretion.
- Installation. The contractor aims to install within 6 weeks and gives at least a week’s notice of the date.
- Afterwards. The council gives a two-year warranty from installation. From year three, keeping the gully costs £4.99 a month to Kerbo Charge, about £59.88 a year (our arithmetic).
Planning, and Reigate’s conservation areas
Surrey County Council says a home charger at a property without off-street parking may need planning permission, and advises contacting your district or borough council. In Reigate that is Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. The town centre is a conservation area, and the council’s Article 4 directions cover most of the borough’s conservation areas, so a charger on a street-facing wall there, or on a listed house, is a question for the borough before it is fitted. We do not make planning applications on a customer’s behalf, but we raise the question at survey.
The charger itself
With a gully approved, the charger goes on the property, wired on its own circuit from the consumer unit. The one we fit is the EnSmart SmartBee-M, whose published specification includes an IP65 weatherproof rating for outdoor wall mounting. A 7.4 kW unit draws 32 A continuously; most homes have a 60 A, 80 A or 100 A main fuse, and load management usually avoids an upgrade. Reigate’s town centre is well inside UK Power Networks’ South Eastern Power Networks area, and your installer notifies UK Power Networks about the chargepoint.
On grants, a Reigate terrace with an approved gully may qualify for OZEV’s on-street help: up to £500 towards a chargepoint installed with an approved cross-pavement solution, subject to the council’s rules, and that scheme runs to 31 March 2027. The claim must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage. Our guide to who qualifies for the chargepoint grant covers the other groups, and EV charger installation cost covers what moves the price.
If a gully will not work
Some streets will not suit a gully. Surrey County Council’s page describes the public alternative it is building. Connected Kerb is contracted to install thousands of public charge points across the county over five years, of three kinds:
- standard 7 kW points;
- slower lamp-post points, which the council describes as 3 kW charging;
- rapid points of 50 kW and above, mainly in car parks.
The page reported over 200 charge point sockets installed for the council as of October 2024, and it lists the current per-kWh charges for each type. For a Reigate terrace, a lamp-post point nearby suits a car that can sit for a long time, while a charger at home, where one is possible, lets you charge on your own tariff.
Roofs as well as kerbs
A terrace without a drive can still have panels, and with a gully and a compatible setup, surplus solar can go to the car on days it is parked outside in daylight. Our page on solar panels in Reigate covers what a Reigate roof could generate.
Sources: Surrey County Council, Electric vehicles (https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/sustainable/electric-vehicles), reviewed 1 October 2026, read 19 October 2026; ONS Census 2021, TS044 accommodation type, Reigate and Banstead (E07000211), Nomis; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; UK Power Networks licence boundaries (UKPN Open Data, December 2024); EnSmart SmartBee-M published specification, as listed by its UK distributor; Reigate and Banstead Borough Council conservation areas and Article 4 directions. Percentages and annual costs are our arithmetic.