Decision details

In February 2023, the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) announced that Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) funding would be pre-allocated to all local authorities. The LEVI Fund had two main objectives:

• to support local authorities to deliver a step-change in the deployment of local, on-street public charging infrastructure where residents cannot park off street as well as help to provide an equitable distribution of chargepoints across the county, and
• to accelerate the commercialisation of, and private investment in local public charging infrastructure.

The receipt of the LEVI funding was subject to the submission of an initial business case by the County Council demonstrating that the scope of the project aligns with the funding requirements, value, and approach to procurement.

Following submission of the Council’s LEVI business case to OZEV in October 2023, the County Council was notified in January 2024 that the initial application had been successful. As a consequence, East Sussex County Council was awarded the £4.441m capital grant allocation in March 2024 and received 90% upfront with the remaining 10% held back by OZEV until procurement and contract award is made.

The project details were agreed by Cabinet in June 2024 and the County Council agreed to proceed with the procurement of a chargepoint operator to support delivery. This was based on taking forward the delivery of the project as a concession model. Running the contract as a concession means that the project would be contained financially and reputationally and would require no monetary or additional operational resources from the local authority, thereby offering a lower risk approach to the County Council.

The County Council were informed by the Department for Transport (DfT) at the end of January 2025 that the Council’s final LEVI Capital Fund application met the required conditions of the fund, the tender documents had been approved and that the Council could proceed to tender.

The tender process was undertaken between mid-April and end June 2025. Four compliant bids were received, and each exceeding the requirement to deliver at least 2,000 chargepoints at across 300 locations in the county. All bids also provided for the delivery of fast and rapid chargepoints as well as a mixed provision of fast and rapid chargers at County Hall.

Following a tender evaluation process, a preferred bidder has been identified.

The preferred bidder will design, install, and operate the new chargepoints under a 15- year concession agreement. They will contribute their own investment (estimated to be in excess of £27.5m) alongside the East Sussex LEVI funding and take full responsibility for operation, maintenance, and customer service.

The preferred bidder’s proposal will deliver more than 2,400 sockets at around 500 locations across the county, including a substantial quantity of high-powered rapid chargers, as well as chargepoints at County Hall.

Award of the East Sussex on street electric vehicle chargepoint contract through the Crown Commercial Services Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Solutions (VCIS) contract framework to the preferred bidder to design, install, and operate the new chargepoints on behalf of East Sussex County Council for a period of 15 years.

The contract will be run as a concession model which transfers the operational and financial risk for the chargepoints to the operator.

Various alternative options considered in consultation with the Communities, Economy and Transport department’s Contracts Management Group.

Option 1 – use alternative contract framework such as mini-competition via the Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation Vehicle Charging Infrastructure framework

This and other alternative frameworks do not operate in the same way as the CCS framework and as such, the suppliers available through the framework are set and will not change through the lifetime of the framework. This results in the Council not having access to as wide a range of potential suppliers as it would with the preferred route to market.

Option 2 – Open Tender

Whilst this opens competition up to the entire market and all interested bidders, and the process could be tailored to meet the Council’s specific needs and requirements, it would be incredibly time consuming and would require a much greater resource commitment than calling off from a compliant framework.

In addition, due to the way the current preferred route to market is structured via the CCS framework, this option would not open up to a great deal more, if any, additional suppliers that the Council does not currently have access to.

Option 3 – do nothing and not run a procurement exercise in any form

This is not a feasible option as the funding has been granted and awarded to the authority, as such, if the Council was to do nothing then the funding would be revoked. Additionally, this contract is deemed as being pivotal to enabling the County to work towards the targets and goals set out in relation to the reduction of carbon emissions across the County. Not implementing this contract would have a serious knock-on effect to the authority’s ability to do this.