ROMRA has been discussing the need for electric car charging within Royal Mills with Zenith. Whilst the need for this is indisputable at some point in the near future, there are a number of issues as follows.
The power supply into the car parks may not be sufficiently highly rated to be able to allow car chargers in any quantity. This may have to be upgraded at some considerable cost.
The means by which users could be charged for the electricity they use, which can require some sort of communication link, does not exist either and may need to be installed.
In our leases, the car parking spaces are not “owned” by leaseholders. The lease confers a right to a parking space somewhere in the car park areas. Therefore, if a car charger was installed at a resident’s expense, it is unclear what would happen on sale of the property and if the leaseholder was reassigned a different car parking space. This needs to be worked through.
It is important to be able to control the quality of installations in terms of fire risk and health and safety. Therefore, identifying an experienced and reputable supplier is important.
The technology for car chargers is changing rapidly at present and it may therefore be prudent to see what emerges as a best practice solution for existing apartment blocks to avoid wasting money on a sub optimal solution which is quickly superseded by a much better one.
As a consequence, and because we want Zenith to focus on sorting EWS1, window, door and roof repair/replacement and other urgent projects in the Mills in the near term, ROMRA intend to set up a working group with Zenith to address this during 2022. If anyone in the Royal Mills has specific experience or knowledge in this area, we would be happy to hear from you with a view to your involvement in this group. (Please email: info@romra.co.uk)
In the meantime, the previous proposal to allow residents to unilaterally install car chargers has been suspended.