A home charger in a Worthing terrace: parking, the supply and the grant

Worthing is seven miles down the A24 and the town we give as our own location, and much of it — the centre and East Worthing in particular — is Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis. For an electric car that makes it three different towns, and the honest thing is to say which one you live in before anyone talks about chargers.

The semi with a drive

The straightforward case, and most of the town’s post-war streets. The unit goes on the house wall or the garage wall nearest where the car stops — we ask, because the obvious wall is not always the one the car is next to — with a short run to the consumer unit. If the board has a spare way and the supply is sound, a single charger is typically a day’s work, tested and certificated by the electricians who fitted it and notified to UK Power Networks.

The terrace with a rear space

A terrace with a rear access and a parking space behind it is a home-charger case with one question in it: the cable route from a board at the front of the house to a unit at the back. The survey measures it, says whether it runs inside or outside the house, and prices it. What it does not do is cross a pavement.

The terrace on the street

Not a home-charger case, and we would rather say so on the phone than sell you a visit. A home charger needs your own off-street space; a cable across the pavement is not an answer. For this house the route is the county’s on-street programme: Adur & Worthing is one of the partners in West Sussex County Council’s partnership with Connected Kerb, which proposed phase-one sites in 78 locations across the county in August 2022, fully funded by the operator, aimed at a chargepoint within a few minutes of residents without off-street parking and supplied with 100 per cent green electricity by Octopus Energy.

The supply, which is the real question in a pre-war house

A charger, an oven and a shower running at once is more than plenty of older supplies enjoy. A load-managed charger watches the incoming supply and eases off rather than tripping the main fuse, and on a 1900s terrace it is the usual specification. The consumer unit is read before the wall: a dedicated circuit needs a spare way and the right protection, and a board with neither — or an earthing arrangement that needs attention — is a job in its own right, quoted as its own line. Electricians in Worthing is the same team, so it is one visit rather than two.

The grant

For flat owners and renters with their own private off-street parking space, the government’s chargepoint grant covers 75% of the cost of buying and installing a socket, up to £500, for a vehicle on the OZEV-approved list (gov.uk, read 19 October 2026). An owner-occupier of a house is not covered; a tenant of a semi with a drive is.

The car, the roof and the battery

A 7 kW charger draws more than a domestic array makes at its best moment and most cars charge at night, so the panels do not charge the car directly. What the car does is add the largest single load the house will ever carry — our model allows 1,800 kWh a year — and change the size of the solar and the battery. Solar panels in Worthing and battery storage in Worthing are the other two parts of the same design; sizing solar, a battery and a car as one system is the method.

Where to go next

EV charger installation in Worthing is the page for the job. Along the coast, Shoreham-by-Sea has the same three houses plus the harbour, and Littlehampton the same plus two network operators. The words — load-managed charger, time-of-use tariff — are in the glossary.

Sources: Arun District Council news, “Revealed: phase one of proposed on-street electric vehicle charging provision for West Sussex” (24 August 2022, read 19 October 2026); gov.uk, “Electric vehicle chargepoint grant for renters or flat owners” (read 19 October 2026); the site’s own Worthing, EV-charger and estimator facts.