Top up on the road, fill up where you stay
Rapid and ultra-rapid chargers in the county's towns are built for a quick top-up on the way somewhere.
Once a visitor reaches a cottage near Bamburgh or a lodge at Kielder, the need changes. They want to plug in when they arrive and find the car full in the morning. That is the job of a destination charger.
Holiday parks, lodges and cottages
The coast from Amble up to Seahouses and Beadnell, and the countryside inland, are full of caravan parks, lodge sites and holiday cottages. Not all of them offer charging yet.
That gap is national. Drax found that 61% of sites across 16 top-rated UK holiday park operators had no onsite EV charging, based on Zapmap data (Drax).
A park with chargers can say so on booking sites and in its listings. Our holiday park EV charging page covers touring pitches, lodge layouts and tariffs.
Good to know: If day visitors can use your charger as well as guests, the Public Charge Point Regulations apply, including contactless on new chargers of 8kW and above. The guidance doesn't say whether a guest-only charger counts as public, so check before you decide.
Country house hotels and wedding venues
Northumberland has castles, halls and country house hotels that host weddings, shooting parties and long weekends. Guests often drive a long way to get there and stay at least one night.
A dual pedestal lets two guests charge at once, and overnight almost any car gets a full charge. See our pages on wedding venues and hotels.
What brings people here
Alnwick Castle and The Alnwick Garden draw big crowds through the season. Bamburgh Castle, Holy Island and boat trips to the Farne Islands from Seahouses keep the coast busy through the summer.
Inland, Hadrian's Wall runs across the south of the county, with Housesteads and Vindolanda among the best-known sites. Kielder Water and Forest Park sits in the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park, and Kielder Observatory draws stargazers on winter nights.
Most visitors arrive on the A1 north of Morpeth, the A69 through the Tyne Valley, or the A68 and A697. The towns along them, such as Morpeth, Hexham, Rothbury and Berwick, all have hotels, pubs and cafés that serve those drivers.
Rural grid: plan for it early
Northern Powergrid runs the network across Northumberland, and rural supplies are where most surprises happen. A remote site may be on a single-phase supply, and our dual 22kW charger needs three-phase.
If Northern Powergrid needs to do works, the national Guaranteed Standards set how long they have to send a quote. That is 35 working days where high-voltage works are involved, and 65 for extra-high voltage (ENWL Notice of Rights).
Our typical 6 to 12 weeks from survey to switch-on can stretch where network works are needed. The timing then depends on Northern Powergrid, and we tell you as soon as we have their quote. Optional load balancing can sometimes avoid an upgrade altogether. Read our guide to grid capacity and the DNO.
Protected places
Hadrian's Wall is a World Heritage Site and a scheduled monument. Permitted development for charger equipment housing does not apply on a scheduled monument or within the curtilage of a listed building (legislation.gov.uk).
Sites inside Northumberland National Park, along the protected Northumberland coast or in historic town centres such as Alnwick and Berwick may need a closer look. We raise this at survey and check with the right planning authority, which inside the National Park is the National Park Authority. Planning rules shift, so confirm the current position before you rely on it.
Once the charger is in
On a rural site the next charger can be a long drive away, so yours needs to work when a driver arrives. We monitor chargers remotely, handle payments and driver support, and arrange maintenance, so faults are picked up early. Our guide to what to expect from a commercial charger covers the running side.
Next step
Book a free site survey and we will check your supply first, since that decides most rural jobs. If you want to keep the upfront cost to the installation, look at the Shared Investment option on our packages page.