Electric charging points with personal assistance are coming to two Gridserve locations in the south of England, which the charging network says will make charging electric cars much easier for disabled drivers. 

Introduced at Gridserve’s flagship electric forecourts in Braintree and Norwich, charging attendants will be available on request via the brand’s fuelService assistance smartphone application. 

The app will allow drivers at either of these locations to request help from a Girdserve Guru - the staff at charging locations, who are already on hand to assist anyone using the site to recharge their car. The new assistance feature means that disabled drivers will essentially be able to pre-book a Guru’s assistance, speeding up their recharge and making it much easier from an accessibility standpoint. 

Roughly 2.35 million blue badges have been issued for disabled drivers in the UK, and many charging services are trying to redesign their stations and points to be as friendly as possible to those with accessibility needs. 

Charity Motability estimates that around 2.7 million disabled drivers will be on Britain’s roads by 2035 - the cut off date for all new vehicle sales to be zero emissions - and that by that point, half of them will already be reliant on a fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle. 

Gridserve says that all of the charging points at its electric forecourts are in extra-wide bays and feature access ramps, while within the lounge areas drivers can wait in while their cars recharge are wheelchair accessible washrooms. The brand’s locations are all audited by the Access For All UK charity, to ensure they meet accessibility needs.