The Law That Changed Nothing - PCPR 2023
There used to be a database. One database. Run by the government. Every public charge point in the UK, in one place, free to access, no application form, no API key, no commercial wrapper. You wanted to know where the chargers were, you went to the database. Simple. It was called the National Charge Point Registry and it was decommissioned. Just gone. The replacement was the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, which sounds impressive until you read it and realise it is basically a strongly worded suggestion with no one checking whether anyone is actually following it.
The obligation to publish data exists. The obligation to publish good data does not. The obligation to publish it in a consistent format does not. The obligation to keep it current does not. And the obligation to enforce any of it rests with nobody in particular, interpreted differently by everyone, and checked by no one at all.
What actually happened is that the government wrote a law and then handed the keys to the same commercial entities who benefit most from keeping the data closed.
Jumping Through Hoops for Data You Already Own
Here is what it looks like in practice. You want to build something useful with UK EV charging data. Something free, something public, something that actually helps drivers. So you go looking for the data.
You find that some networks publish feeds. You apply for access. You wait. Weeks pass. Sometimes months. You chase. You get an automated response telling you that the network is fully compliant with the 2023 regulations and that your request is being reviewed. You wait some more. Eventually you either get access to a feed that was last updated in 2022, or you get nothing at all.
Meanwhile the same networks have commercial data sharing agreements with aggregators. Those aggregators sit behind paywalls, rate limits, and API keys. The data that the law says is public is available - for a price, on their terms, through their platform.
The ONS does it. The Met Office does it. Dress up public data in a commercial wrapper, charge for convenient access, call it a service. The EV industry learned from the best.
The Monopoly Nobody Is Talking About
Zap-Map is not a neutral tool. It is a commercial platform that has spent years positioning itself as the definitive source of UK charging data while simultaneously making it as difficult as possible for anyone else to build with that data independently. The business model only works if you need Zap-Map. The moment the data is genuinely free and genuinely open, the advantage disappears.
So the advantage is protected. Through commercial agreements with networks. Through API access terms that prohibit competitive use. Through a regulatory framework that requires publication but not accessibility. And through the quiet reality that most of the networks feeding into these platforms are not UK companies at all.
Norwegian state energy companies. American private equity. Dutch infrastructure funds. They came to the UK, took the subsidies, built the chargers on public land, and now they control the data about where those chargers are and whether they work. The PCPR23 did not change that. It ratified it.
Funded Twice, Owned Once
Here's another slap in the face. Many of these same networks run dedicated departments whose entire job is helping businesses, councils, and members of the public apply for government grants to get charging infrastructure installed. Free chargers. Heavily subsidised installs. Public money, administered through a friendly face with a helpdesk number and a brochure.
The taxpayer funds the grant scheme. The taxpayer funds the grid connection. The taxpayer funds the installation through the operator's own grant team. And at the end of it, the operator owns the asset, controls the data, and locks both behind their commercial platform.
You paid for the charger. You paid for the installation. And you still cannot find out if it works without going through their app.
That is not a public-private partnership. That is a publicly funded gift to a private company, wrapped in the language of the green transition and signed off by a government that either does not understand what it is doing or does not care.
What Actually Needs to Happen
The NCR needs to come back. Not as a voluntary registry. Not as a compliance checkbox. As a mandatory, centrally maintained, publicly accessible database of every public charge point in the UK, updated in real time, with no commercial wrapper, no API key, and no application process.
Operators should be required to push data to it. Not publish it somewhere on their own terms. Push it. To a central source. In a standard format. On a defined schedule. With enforcement that has actual teeth.
The data quality obligation needs to be real. Postcodes that do not exist. Coordinates in the North Sea. Connector types listed as EVSE, which is not a connector type, it is the entire unit. Stale records from networks that consider a 2022 update sufficient. All of it needs a standard, and that standard needs to be enforced by someone with the authority to act when it is not met.
And the commercial ring-fencing needs to end. If you built a charge point with public money on public land under a public mandate, the data about that charge point is public. Full stop. No licensing terms. No aggregator agreements. No paywalls. Public.
Sign the Petition
This is not a niche technical complaint. This is about whether the infrastructure of the electric future belongs to the public who paid for it or to the corporate bodies who were handed the keys to it. If you drive an EV, if you are thinking about driving an EV, if you have ever sat in a car park wondering whether the charger at the other end of it actually works, this affects you.
Sign the petition