Accessible EV Charging
4
4
Date of visit: August 2025
I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.
I use or have experience of: disabled toilet, wheelchair
Overall Rating
Good
In the car park of the northbound services there was a bank of Gridserve EV charging stations. There were 12 EV charging bays in total with two of them looking like they were accessible charging bays. I’m not an expert but it seemed likely that they were compliant with the PAS 1899 accessibility standards for public EV charging stations. It’s rare to see charging bays like this, so it made me quite excited! I don’t have an EV myself just yet but it’s something I’m considering so it’s really great to see EV infrastructure being developed and it’s even better to see accessibility being included!
Disabled Access In and Around
Good
The EV charging stations were some of the first bays you drove by as you entered the car park. They were in a central location and were close to the main doors of the services. The only spaces that were closer were the accessible parking bays. The two accessible charging bays were on the end of the bank of charging bays, making them the closest to the main building. They were also painted green which made them easily distinguishable from the other charging bays which were painted blue. The bays themselves were much wider than the others but also had additional space around them, including painted hatchmarks at the end of the bay. The charging station was placed flat on the floor, so there were no steps or kerbs to navigate. There were two bollards placed on either side of the machine to stop vehicles from accidentally hitting the machine. These were placed quite far apart from each other so it didn’t limit the space to access the machine. The machine itself had a screen that was a good height for most users. There were also stickers with lots of information such as QR codes for the app, receipts and costs, an identification number for the charging station and other instructions about using the machine. These were all placed at a good height, with none of them being too high for me to read or interact with from my wheelchair. The machine had its own cables attached to it that would then connect to an EV. These were CCS (DC) connectors and could charge at speeds of up to 360kW. The cables were easy for me to disconnect and reconnect to the station and felt light enough that it wouldn’t have been difficult to attach them to a vehicle.
Accessible facilities: Step-free entrance, Step-free route with firm surface from car park to entrance, Wheelchair-accessible food and beverage outlet
Parking & Transport
Good
I travelled to this place by personal vehicle
These services are located on the M1 between junctions 11A and 12. I visited the northbound services but there is a walkway that connects the northbound and southbound facilities via a platform lift. You would only be able to get to these services by a vehicle such as car, WAV, van, motorbike or coach.
Accessible facilities: Electric Vehicle Charging, Dedicated on site parking
Accessible Toilets
There were a number of accessible toilets inside the main building, including a Changing Places Toilet.
