Electric atmosphere: there’s only one EV charging space in Croydon for every 862 people… but Mayor Perry has wacked extra fees on drivers
While world leaders discuss the climate emergency in Baku, here in Croydon, the local Conservative council is making it more difficult for people to reduce their emissions and save the planet. By our south of the borough correspondent, PEARL LEE
Not listening: Mayor Perry has hit EV drivers with massive hike in parking charges
Jason Perry, Croydon’s pollution-loving Mayor, has zapped electric vehicle drivers with fees of almost £8 a session just to access chargers, while failing to install desperately needed new ones.
Only 18 electric vehicle charging points were installed this year, down from 111 the previous year.
This follows the scrapping of Croydon’s emissions-based parking tariffs in July, which occurred alongside the botched rollout of the RingGo parking payment system.
Previously, it had cost mere pennies for EV owners to park in council car parks while connected to a charger.
Yet the £8 council parking fee is on top of a bill for electricity used – already sky-rocketing thanks to Wild West-style pricing in the borough by a slew of profiteering operators.
Lack of signage at on-street bays also makes it unclear whether drivers should pay parking fees in order to charge – and the seriously flawed RingGo app won’t help you with that, either.
Bush craft: EV drivers have to arrive armed with hedge trimmers if they want to use the chargers at Lion Green Road
There has been rapid growth in the number of EV vehicles registered across the country and the capital in recent years, as motorists seek to reduce their carbon emissions and also reduce their motoring costs.
But after the previous council administration anticipated this increase in demand for on-street charging – not everyone, like Perry, owns a £1million-plus mansion with off-street parking, after all – under the Tory Mayor, it seems to have become official policy to make life more difficult, and much more expensive, for EV drivers. Perry has, in effect, pulled the plug.
Perry has remained silent on the fact that additional chargers won’t arrive until in Croydon mid-2025 at the earliest.
Department for Transport funding depends on approving the council’s plans. But Perry doesn’t have one.
The Mayor justified scrapping the emissions-based parking charges scheme by claiming that petrol engines are getting cleaner – amid fears this week of a new dieselgate scandal.
He also claimed that EV sales were doing well – which quickly fell short after trade data showing flatlining consumer demand due to their surging costs.
Meanwhile, the council stands accused of “greenwashing”, as chargers are placed in inaccessible locations merely to boost planning applications – often without oversight by the politicians meant to be ensuring the community can benefit from them.
Coulsdon is home to Volkswagen, Audi, Kia, Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover dealerships, all selling the new, low-polluting electric vehicles. Yet the town centre is an EV charging blackspot, where there is just one public charger available 24/7.
One Coulsdon resident told Inside Croydon of the new surcharge: “It’s like paying a parking fee when buying fuel at a petrol station – it’s really unfair.”
Having complained to the council about being forced to pay extra at Lion Green Road, the motorist was told by a councillor that the tariff was to ensure the turnover of spaces. Even in the long-stay bays.
Shell profits: the oil giant charges Waitrose customers more than three times the going rate to charge their EVs
“I couldn’t believe it,” the motorist added. “The whole point of using the charger is that you’re there for hours, not minutes. It now costs me £7.88 extra, thanks to Mayor Perry.”
Mired in controversy since its spaces were slashed from 200 to 102 to make way for a Brick by Brick housing development, Lion Green Road now effectively has only 88 spaces because non-EV drivers can’t park in the 14 charging bays and EV drivers can’t afford to use them.
Even if they wanted to, they would have to get past the thorny foliage planted around them – and seldom maintained.
Coulsdon’s charging chaos continues at Aldi, where planning permission to make its car park customer-only – and break one of its original planning conditions – was granted by council planning officials on the basis that five EV chargers are provided, plus provision for another five in future.
There are four there already, but these are usually occupied by non-EVs. The council claims shoppers stay an average 30minutes, which would give EVs virtually no charge at all. The charging points at Aldi are only available during store hours.
Waitrose fairs even worse. Not only are its chargers unavailable outside store opening hours, but the rip-off rapid Shell chargers cost 89p per kw/h; compared with an average slow home charger cost of 24.5p. Lion Green Road’s are 55p.
Misleading: Cllr Samir Dwesir
Over in Purley and Woodcote ward, Conservative councillor Samir Dwesar misleadingly told residents in September: “With an increase in electric vehicles, it’s welcome that Croydon Council is taking steps to increase the number of charging points (there are over 400 public ones at the moment).
“I am also pushing developers to include an acceptable number of charging points in planning applications and for council officers to put robust conditions on this before agreeing to recommend an application for approval.”
The types, location and conditions of charger use have a huge bearing on their benefit to communities.
Yet the council is being anything but robust.
Perry’s U-turn on EVs deals a fresh blow to current owners of electric vehicles, and those thinking of making the switch before petrol and diesel are phased out by 2030 (2035 for some hybrids).
EV drivers are also set to pay Vehicle Excise Duty for the first time from April 2025.
At his General Election hustings, while desperate for votes, Croydon South MP Chris Philp boasted of the progress being made on chargers, taking credit for hundreds being installed. The council’s website says there are 452 – for a population of more than 390,000. That’s one EV charging point for every 860 people…
Around half of households in Croydon don’t have a driveway and need public chargers.
A council draft action plan is expected in December to secure Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure – the LEVI levy – cash from the Department for Transport.
But from our climate crisis-denying, ULEZ-opposing Mayor, don’t expect any va va voom.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Short sighted.
Not necessarily. EVs may not be the solution, and we need to slow this headlong rush to EV. The infrastructure isn’t there, and there are other answers out there which in time may consign EVs to the scrap heap.
Such as?
I’ve several friends who have gone EV and their experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I suspect someone has been reading the Torygraph who, for some reason, have gone anti EV
Short sighted? Blinkered, more like it. While Perry’s protégé Roach is sabotaging active travel, Croydon’s answer to Bernard Manning is putting the mockers on reducing carbon emissions
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said it best: “We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.“
That’s great! Electric vehicles are not green. They contain materials which are dangerous and have to be disposed of at the end of the battery life. They’re are charged from the electric grid and most battery components come from China. Hydrogen vehicles are much greener and this is what we should be aiming for.
On-street parking: 43% of licensed vehicles in London are parked on-street.
Parking in new developments: 72% of vehicles in new developments are parked off-street. Parking provision is lower in new developments and in developments containing flats.
Charging for electric vehicles: London has 78% of all on-street chargers in the UK. However, the public infrastructure isn’t placed to support overnight charging.
So dont build dwellings that do not have adequate parking as in flats with garage underneath or around the building all fitted with charging points, this of course will not happen as councils do not allow adequate parking to be part of the construction plan so the 72% and 43% will only go up making the matter worse, and the people who dont have off street could have properly constructed across the kerb charging which on our crowded streets would only work if the parking outside their property as in the public road was reserved and that wont happen either. The whole parking and charging issue is stymied by local councils and government. In short if you dont have off street parking dont buy an electric car, if you live long enough you may see the problem sorted out, but I doubt it.
Is there anything Perry can’t ruin
If you voted for him, feel ashamed