New driveway law for homes in England under Andy Burnham

Driveway law change aims to speed up EV charging

The government has changed the rules on residential driveways so that homeowners can install electric vehicle charging points without planning permission. The change, reported by Birmingham Live, is intended to remove red tape that could cause delays of up to nine months.

The law change falls under the government led by Andy Burnham, as noted in the same report. Residents will no longer need to apply for planning permission to add chargepoints to their driveways.

The move comes ahead of the planned ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, and the Department for Transport has set a target of 300,000 new charging points by the end of the decade. Minister Lilian Greenwood was quoted as saying: "We're cutting down on paperwork to power up the EV revolution so that drivers, businesses and those looking to make the switch will have more chargepoints to power from and less red tape to deal with."

She added that the government is investing over £2.3 billion to support drivers and back British carmakers. Lewis Gardiner, operations director at Osprey Charging Network, was also quoted in the Birmingham Live report. He said removing the need for planning permission for essential electrical infrastructure would "save months of delays, reduce costs and accelerate the delivery" of charging points.

The report noted that the planning permission process could sometimes take as long as nine months, and that the long-winded process was severely holding up the roll-out of charging infrastructure.

Separately, road safety priorities have been raised in the Daily Express, which reported that Andy Burnham has been told to focus on two major changes to UK roads. The suggestions come from Tom Jervis, consumer writer at Auto Express, who made the case in a new manifesto aimed at the new Labour leader.

Jervis argued that making sure roads are "properly policed" is now a top priority, and called for more police officers on the streets and tougher penalties. He said the increase in offences may be influenced by the growing number of cameras, but added: "There is still a general feeling that car crime has been decriminalised as there are now so few traffic police out on patrol and offenders seem to face very few repercussions."

The Daily Express report includes statistics showing the number of road users receiving penalty points for speeding rose from 678,367 in 2022 to 939,519 in 2025, a 32% increase. Drug driving convictions also increased from 4,824 in 2016 to 19,709 in 2024.

Jervis said: "We want to see more police officers out on patrol and tougher enforcement and sentencing for repeat drink/drug driving offenders, in order to make our roads safer for all."

The Department for Transport has opened a consultation into proposed enforcement changes, with speeding and drink/drug driving explicitly mentioned. The consultation asks whether the current statutory time limit of six months for speeding offences should be changed to 18 months, and whether the minimum disqualification period for death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs needs to change.

These developments come as the government under Andy Burnham faces early decisions on transport policy, balancing moves to encourage EV adoption with demands for stronger enforcement of road traffic laws.