EV Charging Points in Newcastle City Centre

Charging an electric car in Newcastle city centre is mostly a matter of choosing the right multi-storey. The council has put EV bays into its main car parks, a private operator adds a few more, and the whole picture is designed around plugging in while you shop, work or see a show rather than a ten-minute splash and dash. This guide sets out what the official car park pages list, how to pay, and how to check whether a bay is free before you set off.

If you are driving in for the day anyway, our parking guide covers tariffs, the cashless rule and the evening cut-off times for every council car park.

Council car parks with EV bays

Newcastle City Council's car park finder has an "EV space" filter, and it currently returns eight car parks. Seven of them are in or on the edge of the city centre (the eighth, St Nicholas Avenue, is in Gosforth). The bay numbers below are the council's own figures.

The Garage at Helix

By some distance the largest set of council EV bays in the centre, with 28 spaces in a car park on Corporation Street beside the Newcastle Helix science quarter. It is open 6am to 10pm every day, so check those hours if you are planning to leave the car late. It is a short walk from the west end of the centre and St James' Park.

Best for: Best for: the best odds of finding a free bay on a busy day.

Civic Centre

The Civic Centre car park, by the Haymarket end of the city, lists 19 EV spaces out of 267. It is well placed for the universities, the Haymarket and Northumberland Street.

Best for: Best for: the north side of the centre, the universities and Haymarket.

Eldon Garden and Eldon Square

The two shopping-centre multi-storeys on Percy Street have six and four EV bays respectively. With hundreds of ordinary spaces in each and only a handful of chargers, these are the bays most likely to be taken on a Saturday.

Best for: Best for: a shopping trip, if you arrive early.

Dean Street, Grainger Town and Quayside

Dean Street (six bays) sits between Grey Street and the Quayside, Grainger Town (four) is on Waterloo Street near Central Station, and Quayside (four) is on City Road at the east end of the river front. All three are useful for evenings out, theatre trips and the Quayside bars and restaurants.

Best for: Best for: an evening on the Quayside or in Grainger Town.

How council charging works

The council's charge points are managed by EV Smart, and the council directs drivers to the EV Smart app (App Store and Google Play) to find its chargers, register an account, read the operating instructions for each unit and report faults. The council does not publish a per-kWh tariff on its car park pages, so check the price in the app or on the charge point before you plug in.

The point that catches people out is that you pay for the parking as well as the charging. Since October 2018 the council has charged the normal parking tariff for EV bays, after finding that the bays were being used mostly for free all-day parking and were rarely available after the morning rush. The car parks themselves take card and PayByPhone, and each car park page gives its PayByPhone location code.

Q-Park Stowell Street

Outside the council network, the Q-Park on Stowell Street (NE1 4YB), on the edge of Chinatown, lists six electric charging points and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Q-Park's UK charging is provided in partnership with Blink Charging, so expect to start a session through Blink rather than the council's app. Q-Park does not publish the charging speed or price on its car park page, so check on arrival or in the app.

Best for: Best for: Chinatown, St James' Park and late finishes, as it never closes.

What about rapid charging?

Be realistic about speed. The city centre bays are destination chargers, built for a car that will be parked for a few hours, and we could not confirm a dedicated rapid or ultra-rapid hub inside the city centre itself. If you need a fast top-up on the way in or out, use the speed filter on Zap-Map: the rapid and ultra-rapid sites it lists for Newcastle are on the outskirts, at retail parks and roadside sites rather than in the core. A Fastned rapid hub at Helix was announced back in 2018, but we found no sign that it is open, so do not plan around it.

Checking live availability

With only four to six bays in most car parks, a quick check before you set off saves a wasted lap of the ramps.

• EV Smart app: live status for the council's own charge points, plus fault reporting.
• The council's charging map: the Greener Newcastle site carries a map of council-owned charge points and their current operational status.
• Zap-Map: the council itself points drivers here for everything that is not council-owned, including supermarkets, retail parks and offices, with operator, connector type and cost.

If a charger is broken, report it through the EV Smart app, or email ev.charging@newcastle.gov.uk.

If you live in the city centre

Most city centre homes are flats with no driveway, which makes public charging the default. The council says it is using Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) funding to install shared charge points in residential areas, and is developing a cross-pavement charging pilot backed by £1.2 million from the government's Cross Pavement Charging Fund. No launch date has been published, so keep an eye on the council's electric vehicles page. If you do have off-street parking, the council notes that a home charger usually needs no planning permission, provided your driveway is at least five metres long.

If you would rather leave the car altogether, our guide to getting around Newcastle city centre without a car covers the Metro, buses and cycling.

EV charging changes quickly. Spotted a new charger, a broken bay or a hotel that lets visitors plug in? Tell us via our contact page.