Transport Scotland has responded to reports that ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) will be broken up, refuting suggestions that the charging network will be discontinued in the summer.

Launched back in 2010, ChargePlace Scotland is the fifth biggest network in the UK

A news story out today says the network, set up by the Scottish Government, will be disbanded to enable future growth and investment.

Launched back in 2010, CPS is the fifth biggest network in the UK, according to Zap-Map, and amalgamates more than 2,500 publicly available chargers across Scotland, from Shetland to the Scottish borders. These are owned by hosts including local authorities and public bodies, while CPS offers a single unified point of access to the charge points, monitors overall performance, and liaises with owners and suppliers alike where issues are raised or identified. This is carried out under an outsourced contract. Currently Swarco has the deal, after taking over as the back-office operator from 1 July 2021 in a two-year contract that has the option to run until mid-2025.

According to Transport Scotland, the early development of the network means that Scotland now has the greatest number of charge points per head of population than any other region of the UK.

However, rising demand and the need for investment is putting pressure on the network and the rumour is that the majority of Scotland’s 32 local authorities instead want to take control of their devices, breaking up most if not all of the network.

According to the reports, authorities will likely look for new partnerships with private companies to operate their chargers.

A spokesperson for Transport Scotland has denied that the coverage is accurate – but said that a move to open some of the network to private investment was necessary.

“To meet our climate change targets, the pace and scale of investment in the public network will need to increase over the coming years and it will be unsustainable for the public sector to deliver this alone.

“That’s why our EV Infrastructure Fund aims to leverage £60m of public and private investment to double the size of the network to 6,000 charge points by 2026. The ChargePlace Scotland network provides a strong foundation to support this and will be an integral part of a transition towards a public charging network that is largely financed and delivered by the private sector.”

Transport Scotland also suggested that such an approach wouldn’t be wholesale and that it would instead target those parts of the infrastructure where both public and private funding would be required.

“While we are creating the conditions for greater commercial investment, our approach will focus public funding on areas of the charging network where private investment alone is unviable,” they added.

Transport Scotland also reiterated that the current ChargePlace Scotland contract has the option to run until mid-2025.

The spokesperson added: “We will continue to evaluate the best long-term approach for managing a seamless transition to the right charging mix to meet our vision for the future of public EV charging.”

Spot-checks carried out by BBC Disclosure late last year indicated that almost a quarter of charging points on the CPS network were faulty. While Transport Scotland said it would review the data, it responded by saying its own measurements suggested only a 2% fault rate. The Electric Vehicle Association (EVA) Scotland also said it was aware of the need to further improve the availability and reliability of Scotland’s public charge point network but added that the programme hadn’t used “consistent and concurrent data”.