Wigan launches £110m EV charging concession

The tender was published on 7 September 2026 with an estimated concession value of £110 million excluding VAT. Submissions are due by 30 November, with the award currently targeted for April 2027. The initial contract term is expected to run from 1 July 2027 to 30 June 2040, with two optional 12-month extensions.

£110 million is a concession value, not council spending

The £110 million headline needs careful interpretation. The procurement notice describes it as the estimated value of the concession over its life; it is not a statement that Wigan Council will spend £110 million installing chargers.

Under a concession model, the operator receives the right to provide and commercially operate charging services at the contracted sites while taking on a substantial part of the delivery and operating risk. The economics therefore depend on far more than the initial hardware purchase: capital contribution, grid and connection costs, utilisation, energy purchasing, maintenance, software and payment costs, financing, revenue sharing and the length of the operating term all affect whether a site portfolio is investable.

Earlier plans pointed to 100 active sockets across 40 car parks

The current tender notice does not state a fixed charger quantity. Earlier February 2026 market-engagement material proposed 100 active charge points with passive provision for more than 100 additional points in council-owned car parks. A Greater Manchester committee paper subsequently described those 100 active sockets as being spread across around 40 council car parks.

Those earlier plans envisaged a mixture of standard and fast charging, with the operator able to deploy rapid or ultra-rapid equipment at suitable locations. Because the live tender no longer repeats the earlier quantity, the 100-socket figure should be treated as previous planning context rather than a guaranteed minimum under the final concession.

The operator is being procured as a long-term service provider

The scope effectively packages site access, private-sector investment, hardware, backend operation, energy sales, maintenance and customer support into one long-duration contract. That can reduce the council’s need to procure each part separately, but it also makes the concession terms central to the eventual network design.

Tariff controls, parking policy, site exclusivity, future site additions, connection-cost responsibility, revenue-sharing mechanisms and requirements to refresh ageing hardware can materially change the commercial case over a 13- to 15-year term.

Wigan is separately planning approximately 150 cross-pavement charging installations for residents without off-street parking. Those proposals are distinct from the council-car-park concession and should not be counted as part of the tendered car-park network.