IN Brief:
- Believ has been selected to deliver 17,180 public EV charge points across Hampshire.
- The 15-year concession is backed by £6.6m of LEVI funding and up to £90m of private investment.
- The rollout will include standard-plus, rapid, and accessible public charging infrastructure.
Hampshire County Council has selected Believ to deliver 17,180 public EV charge points across the county under a 15-year concession contract.
The programme is backed by £6.662m from the Department for Transport’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund and is expected to unlock up to £90m of private investment from Believ. Installations are due to begin later this year, with around 500 charge points planned in the first year.
The contract covers design, installation, operation, and maintenance of the charging network. Most of the infrastructure will be made up of 22kW standard-plus sockets, supported by more than 800 rapid charge points rated above 50kW. Rapid units may also be used for taxi and private-hire hubs where higher-throughput charging is required.
Access for residents without off-street parking is a central part of the programme. Hampshire has estimated that around one in ten properties across the county lack off-street parking, with higher concentrations in some districts. Where possible, charge points will be installed to comply with PAS 1899 accessibility guidance.
Believ will identify locations in coordination with the county council, district and borough councils, and local communities. Residents can nominate potential charging locations through Hampshire County Council.
The award shows how local EV infrastructure is shifting from trial deployment into long-term concession delivery. Councils are using LEVI funding to reduce project risk, while private operators take on capital investment, operation, maintenance, and utilisation exposure. That structure allows local authorities to expand public charging without carrying the full balance-sheet burden of asset ownership.
Public charging delivery is now advancing on two different fronts. Large destination and corridor sites are adding higher-powered charging capacity, while local-authority concessions are building slower residential networks for drivers who cannot charge at home. The wider pattern was evident in recent UK charging activity, where megawatt and concession-based deployments gathered pace across several regions.
The engineering workload extends beyond charger installation. Local networks must absorb new load in streets and car parks that were not originally designed for widespread vehicle charging. Site surveys, feeder capacity, distribution network approvals, protective devices, earthing arrangements, metering, back-office systems, civils, and reinstatement all affect delivery speed.
Charging infrastructure also brings a long maintenance obligation. Operators must manage uptime, payment reliability, electrical safety inspection, cable damage, vandalism, data communications, and software integration across thousands of assets. The size of the Hampshire award makes operational reliability as important as initial rollout volume.
The programme also reflects a change in what public charging is expected to provide. Early networks often centred on visible coverage and occasional top-ups. LEVI-funded schemes are being designed around routine residential use, so placement, availability, pricing transparency, and electrical capacity planning carry more weight.
If delivered as planned, the Believ concession will become one of England’s largest local-authority-led charging deployments. Its success will depend on whether planning, grid connection, street works, and maintenance systems can keep pace with the number of chargers now planned for the county.
