Cornwall Council is conducting a soft market test to inform the development of a 15-year initial term concession contract (with an option to extend by one further year) for Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (EVI), part-funded by the Government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) fund.

The LEVI fund is a UK government initiative designed to support local authorities in expanding EVI. The LEVI Capital Fund specifically aims to:

• Drive a step-change in the deployment of primarily low-power, on-street EV charging across England.
• Accelerate commercialisation and attract private investment into the local charging sector.

Cornwall Council has secured its full allocation of LEVI funding. The majority, £3,106,300, will be used to procure a new external concession contract. The authority is considering using Crown Commercial Services (CCS) contract as a basis to facilitate running an open market procurement for publicly available, on-street EVI services. Cornwall Council would like this funding to help deliver at least 2,000 new EV chargepoints across Cornwall by 2030.

The council adds that the contracting authority has a maximum budget of £3,106,300 (ex-VAT and that the final contract value will include additional capital investment from the successful bidder, anticipated to be at least 60% of the total project cost, subject to bidder proposals and commitments.

(Pic: TTF)