Britain’s biggest housebuilders, including Barratt, Berkeley Group and Taylor Wimpey, all lobbied for ditching of rules requiring electric car chargers to be installed in every new home in England. The plan was announced in 2021 and the government said that it hoped to see 145,000 charging points installed as a result.
The lack of chargers available to drivers is, and remains, a major barrier to rolling out electric vehicles and in reaching the net-zero carbon emissions target but it now appears that the construction industry was warning that the costs of installation was prohibitive and could lead to fewer houses being built.
Charging at home is more attractive to users as one of the big issues preventing the take-up of EV’s is having to search for a charging point when travelling. Also charging overnight is markedly cheaper.
The building companies are now installing charging points in line with the law, but the documents show how hard they lobbied against these government rules.
Working together the rules are now in force and solutions are being delivered at scale suggesting that through collaboration it was possible to make this happen. It does raise the question as to how business is lobbying government to amend, stymie and block new rules and regulations.
A bit more transparency would go amiss!
