Stand where the car spends the night, find its charge port, and walk back to the nearest wall. That short walk decides more about a home charger than the choice of unit does. In an East Sheen semi it might be two metres to the side wall; on a Georgian frontage on Richmond Hill it might end at a listed façade, a conservation-area street or a pavement you cannot cross. Our page on EV charger installation in Richmond covers the borough as a whole, from the footway channel scheme to the grants and the network. This guide stays with the placement question.
Housing type shapes it most. At the 2021 Census, 25.0% of Richmond upon Thames households lived in a semi, 26.6% in a terrace and only 8.3% in a detached house, with 28.2% in purpose-built flats (ONS TS044). Each of those puts the parking space somewhere different relative to the fuse board, and that distance runs through every decision below.
Begin at the parking space, not the fuse board
The charger belongs where the cable reaches the car comfortably with the car parked as it normally is, nose-in or reversed. Measure it, and if two people drive cars with ports in different places, measure both.
Only then look at the route back to the consumer unit. The charger needs its own circuit from the board, and every metre and every obstacle between the two is priced. A board at the front of the house next to the drive makes a short job; a board at the back, with the car at the front, means taking the cable through or round the house.
Wall unit or post
In most Richmond semis with a drive beside the house, the answer is the house wall nearest the car. The SmartBee-M we fit is IP65-rated, so it is built to live outdoors.
A post, which the planning rules call an upstand, makes sense where the parking space sits away from the house: a bay at the far end of a front garden, or a space beside a garage that has no wall in the right place. The national permitted-development rules currently allow an upstand with a charging outlet within off-street parking, up to 1.6 m from the parking surface at a house, with no more than one upstand per parking space, and not within the curtilage of a listed building (GPDO 2015, Schedule 2, Part 2, Class E, read on legislation.gov.uk on 19 October 2026). A post also needs its cable buried from the house, and groundworks are their own line on a quote. Our guide to EV charger installation cost sets out the items that move the price.
Tethered or socketed
The SmartBee-M is published in both forms. The tethered version has a 5 m cable fixed to the unit; the socketed version has a Type 2 socket and takes your own lead.
Tethered is quicker day to day, at the cost of a coiled cable living on the wall. Socketed is neater, which counts on a period front elevation, and it suits a household that changes cars or needs a longer lead than 5 m to reach an awkward port. The 5 m figure is the useful test. If your measurement from the wall to the port is close to it, a socketed unit with a longer lead may be the safer choice.
Inside the house: the circuit and the fuse
A 7 kW charger draws 32 A for hours at a time, and domestic main fuses are commonly 60 A, 80 A or 100 A. At the survey we check the fuse rating, the earthing and whether the consumer unit has room for a new circuit. Where headroom is tight, load management, a sensor on the incoming supply that turns the charger down while the house is busy, usually avoids a supply upgrade.
Richmond’s town centre is in UK Power Networks’ South Eastern Power Networks area, but it is 0.7 km from SSEN’s Southern Electric Power Distribution area and 1.4 km from London Power Networks, so which operator serves your street depends on the address. The installer notifies the operator of the new chargepoint either way.
Front walls, conservation areas and listed homes
This is where Richmond needs care. The borough has 85 conservation areas. The current national rules for both wall outlets (Class D) and posts (Class E) exclude the curtilage of a listed building, so on a listed house the council is the first call, not the installer. On top of that, the government has amended both classes: S.I. 2026/1056, made on 25 September 2026, comes into force on 21 October 2026 and adds new limits that include conservation areas and walls next to a footway. We treat them as a check: if the charger is heading for a front elevation in a conservation area, or for any part of a listed building, ask Richmond Council before anything is fixed.
The same designations shape where other kit can go, and our guide to Richmond’s conservation areas and where a battery can go covers them in more depth.
When the car is at the kerb
On a terrace with on-street parking only, the charger cannot be placed until the pavement is solved. Richmond Council’s footway channel scheme is the route: the council chooses and installs a channel that carries the cable under the pavement, with a £100 non-refundable application fee, installation currently discounted to £250 (previously £1,250) and a three-year Section 178 licence at £150. It says many addresses are not suitable. The charger’s position then has to line up with the channel the council approves, so nothing goes on the wall until the council has said yes.
That approval also unlocks the money. Households with on-street parking only can get up to £500 towards a chargepoint used with an approved cross-pavement channel, and Richmond Council says not to apply until it has confirmed your channel can go in. Our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant explains the other routes, including 75% of the cost, up to £500 per socket, for renters and flat owner-occupiers with private or allocated parking. Grant claims must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage.
What to have ready for the survey
Bring three facts: where the car parks and where its port is, where the consumer unit sits, and whether the house is listed or in a conservation area. If you are also weighing solar panels in Richmond, say so, so that the charger and any panels are planned together rather than one at a time.
Sources: EnSmart SmartBee-M published specification, as listed by its UK distributor; legislation.gov.uk, Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 2, Classes D and E (latest revised text), and S.I. 2026/1056, the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026, both read 19 October 2026; ONS Census 2021, TS044 Accommodation type, via Nomis (read 19 October 2026); Richmond Council, Electric vehicle footway channels (updated 13 July 2026, read 19 October 2026) and About conservation areas; UK Power Networks licence boundaries (December 2024) and NESO GB DNO licence areas (May 2024); GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026).