I have a Motability EV. Living in a terraced house means it can cost £40 per charge

Leanne Wright thought she was doing the right thing by driving an electric car – but now feels she is being financially penalised for living in a terraced home and not being able to have a home charger.

The 44-year-old mum-of-one, who lives in Liverpool, is on personal independence payments (PIP), as she has Ehler-Danlos syndromes (EDS), a genetic condition which affects connective tissues.

Leanne told The i Paper that she only learnt to drive when she was 39 – and it was her son Ben’s situation which prompted her to do it.

“The Motability car is mine because my EDS means I struggle to walk, but the main reason I have the car is because my son has autism and ADHD and his anxiety is really bad. He doesn’t do well with strangers at all, so can’t use public transport,” she says.

When opting for a car model, Leanne chose a Fiat 500e and thought she was doing the right thing by opting for an electric car. But now she feels frustrated as she believes she is being penalised for living in a terraced house and not being able to have a home charger.

Instead, she has to fork out a lot more for costly public charges – and she is infuriated as the Government is fighting a court ruling that could finally make that fairer.

Like millions of people in the UK, Leanne lives in a terraced house and has no driveway, so cannot have a home charger and has to rely on what the council and private installers have installed nearby.

But this comes at a greater cost – and the great inequality is that when a homeowner charges their car overnight using a home charger, they pay 5 per cent VAT on their electricity – the same reduced rate applied to domestic energy bills.

When Leanne uses a public charger, she pays 20 per cent VAT, the full commercial rate, which is four times as much.

Leanne says her car is vital to her and Ben – as she would struggle to get him to school without it – but feels her living situation is costing her.

“My car is a lifeline as before I had it, I was actually housebound for about four or five years and the only time I got out was when friends or family helped me or if I got patient transport service through the hospital.

“Like a lot of people in Liverpool, I live in a terraced house so don’t have a driveway,” said Leanne.

“I’m relying on public charging 99 per cent of the time. But this means I have to pay a lot more to charge my electric car, while someone with a driveway and most probably a bigger house, will pay a lot less. It is unfair as it feels like they are penalising people who don’t have money.”

In March, Charge My Street, a not-for-profit charging company, successfully argued that VAT on public electric car chargers should have been charged at 5 per cent, instead of 20 per cent, in a case at a London tax tribunal.

This could have a huge impact on electric car drivers’ costs – but HMRC confirmed it will appeal against the ruling.

Leanne said: “My brother charges at home and it costs him about £5 to £7 to charge his car. I go to a public charger which is the cheapest one I have found in Liverpool, but it is on the other side of the city and I have to drive about 15 minutes to get there.

She says this cheap charger costs her £12 to use, but most other ones can cost between £20 and £40.

“It is frustrating that the Government is fighting this court ruling as this issue is pinching people who need it the most.”

The disparity has been dubbed the “pavement tax” by campaigners and it disproportionately affects urban drivers who have no alternative.

In the case brought to First-tier tax tribunal, Judge Harriet Morgan found that applying the standard 20 per cent rate was a “strained construction” of the VAT Act which treats electricity as being for domestic use, providing a single user does not consume more than 1,000kw hours at one premises in a given month.

However, the Government confirmed that it would fight the ruling. HMRC announced it would appeal the decision arguing that standard rate VAT should continue to apply to electricity supplied through public electric vehicle infrastructure.

Research from charging provider Be.EV analysed official figures across 343 local authorities and found that social inequality has become a defining barrier to EV adoption in Britain.

A car in the richest fifth of Britain is around 35 to 40 per cent more likely to be electric than a car in the poorest fifth. In some affluent areas, EV adoption rates run up to eight times higher than in the most deprived communities.

In Kensington and Chelsea, 6.45 per cent of private vehicles are electric. In Blaenau, Gwent, it is 0.8 per cent. The richest quintile of local authorities has around 151 public chargers per 100,000 people, while the poorest has just 101.

Driveways are the crux of it. Wealthier suburbs and rural areas typically have off-street parking for the majority of homes, making overnight charging straightforward and cheap.

In dense urban areas, such as where Leanne lives, it is a different story. Around 40 per cent of UK households have no driveway at all and in some cities, the figure is a lot higher.

For these households, public charging is not a backup option – it is the only option.

Leanne said: “The people buying new electric cars are the people who can already afford them and they tend to have driveways. They don’t feel the sting of 20 per cent VAT every time they charge, because they almost never use public infrastructure.

“The ones who feel it are the ones buying secondhand, renting, living on streets that were built long before anyone imagined parking a car at home.

“We don’t have driveways, we live in terraced houses and we’re the ones who need to use the public chargers, which in some cases, are more expensive than petrol.”

According to calculations by charging-mapping company Zapmap, the VAT differential nets the Treasury roughly £85m a year. This figure is projected to climb to £315m by 2030 as the national EV fleet grows.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We want to make it even easier and more affordable for everyone to switch to an EV, especially against the backdrop of high and fluctuating prices at the pumps.

“That is why we’re reviewing the cost of public charging, funding over 100,000 more public charge points, and providing £25 million to help residents without driveways charge at home and benefit from cheaper rates.”