Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy for Bedford Borough 2024 - 2027
Residents with disabilities
EV charging can present barriers for people with disabilities. For example, cables can be heavy and cumbersome to lift, and display screens may not always be easy to understand or use.
A standard for accessible charging of EVs, PAS 1899:2022 was published in October 2022. Full compliance with PAS:1899 extends beyond the charging unit itself to the layout of the street around it, and the provision of information, including on any display screens.
Chargepoints that are designed to meet this standard have only recently been brought to market, and are more expensive than standard chargepoints. If we were to make every new chargepoint fully compliant, we would not be able to install as many new chargepoints as we hope to.
Compliance with PAS:1899 will have many aspects, and may not always be black-and-white: on some sites, it may be feasible to comply with some aspects of the standard, but not all, for instance if the road and footway are relatively narrow.
We therefore propose to meet the needs of EV drivers with disabilities through a combination of PAS:1899 chargepoints at our new sites, and other methods in addition. For example it is already possible to request a designated disabled parking bay outside someone's home (this is a bay that any Blue Badge holder can use, and not technically allocated to the household). We may be able to offer other options in conjunction with this such as a gully or pop-up charging bollard, on the same basis as a dropped kerb (see below).