Parking by the on street charger

[TigerOnTour]

My neighbour parks in the space next to the on street electric car charger point. It's in a lamp post. Neighbour doesn't have an electric car and so doesn't plug his car into this point. DH says this is unreasonable, but the sign only says you need a street parking permit, not that you can only park there if you're electric.

For context, there's not much on street parking and no drive ways.

Is neighbour being unreasonable or is DH?

It's the council you need to contact about changing the signage

@unsweetened who is reasonable?

Your dh is U

DH is being weird, presuming that the neighbour is just parking in the closest available spot to his house like any normal person would. Personally I would never clock a lampposts and whether they contain a charger, I just look for the nearest space and park there.

You can't really stop them. Although a nice neigbour might realise other people need the space and budge up a bit.
I live in an ex council estate and one neighbour has an EV. They have to trail a cable from their house and across the pavement to their car. I do try and allow for this and park a couple of places away from my house so they can charge with less faff.

Contact the council and ask them to post signage that parking is restricted to cars actively charging.

Well your husband is unreasonable as there are no stipulations on who can park there.
Does he have a vehicle that needs charging so would like the opportunity to park there and make use of the charger or is he just being a bit of a busybody?
I do think there should be some sort of rule for electric cars using the space to charge but if its a residential street with limited parking I can see why there isn't.

DH is a busybody. We have a petroleum car.

Nobody should be trailing electric cables across a public pavement. A cable is a trip hazard as well as an uncomfortable bump for prams & wheelchairs.

In what way is OP's DH
being "weird"? What a strange thing to call him

If your DH doesn’t even have an electric car it’s a bit weird for him to have such an issue, are any of the cars that park round there electric?

Depends on the council but generally anyone can park by a lamppost charger, by design- it's only the bollard chargers that are restricted to EVs. The point is that it allows councils to introduce lots of chargers without losing too many ordinary parking places, which is an issue in boroughs where they only have bollard chargers.

Neighbour is doing nothing wrong, your DH needs to mind his business.

Yes I think it’s actually really odd to be invested in or care about the neighbours’ parking when they’re legally parked and not blocking anyone or anything. It’s especially weird when he doesn’t even own an EV so it’s not in any way affecting him!

We have a couple and it's sometimes used, often not. But we also have three charging bays on the short end of the block.
I think your husband is unreasonable- if it's not restricted anyone can park there. However if I knew a close neighbour relied on it to charge their car I'd try to avoid it.

Our council fitted charging points to lamp posts. Dedicated bays marked only for use by charging electric vehicles only.

Until they realised the system didn't work safely

If its is a space for charging an EV then it should say EV's only. If it is a general space with a charging point then its fair game for everyone.

Seems very stupid to have an EV charger and not ringfence the use for EV's only though. Most even have parking fines for non EV's in charging spaces. Crikey our work ones even give fines if you park for an hour over the full charge so you cant waste the space.

Contact the provider and find out what the parameters for parking are.

It would be considerate of residents to leave the space by the charger free if possible but if there are no actual parking restrictions then they're not doing anything wrong to park there. If parking is difficult it's understandable. If I lived close to the charger, parked elsewhere to help EV drivers and then found that other people in ICE vehicles were parking outside my house anyway I'd probably think sod it, I'm parking near my house!