Council car park chargers move to Be.EV: the Mer app stops working, and rates become 39p/kWh off peak, 54p daytime and 64p contactless. Full site list.
Every public charge point in Winchester City Council’s car parks that was run by Mer is being handed to a different operator, and the practical consequence for drivers is that the Mer app will stop working on them. The council confirmed on its EV charging page, last updated on 12 August, that “the Mer app will stop working for the chargers after the transition period” and that Be.EV branding, pricing and payment systems are being introduced across the network over the coming months.
The change lands on a network that has never been busier. Council chargers supplied 479,382kWh between April 2025 and March 2026, the highest annual total since the first ones went in, according to the council’s news release of 22 July, last updated on 31 July.
What is changing, and why
Mer’s UK public charging network was bought by the Manchester operator Be.EV, which announced the deal on 10 February: more than 1,600 charging bays at over 450 sites, taking Be.EV to more than 2,500 bays at over 680 sites. Mer, owned by the Norwegian state energy company Statkraft, keeps its UK fleet and workplace charging business and its European public networks.
Winchester City Council was one of Mer’s local authority customers. Its EV page now describes the partnership as being with “JoJu Solar and Be.EV (formerly Mer)”, and the council has not published which of its car parks sit with which partner, so a driver cannot tell from the published list which points are changing hands and which are not.
One caution the council prints and it is worth reading before you plan around the new rates: “the new pricing will not be available until chargers are migrated to Be.EV”. Until your local unit switches over, the price on the side of the charger is the price you pay.
What it will cost
Be.EV’s published tariffs charge by how fast the charger is and how you pay. Most of the council’s points are 22kW fast units, which sit in Be.EV’s lowest band.
| Charger | App or RFID, 7am to 7pm | App or RFID, 7pm to 7am | Contactless or roaming, anytime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fast, 0 to 25kW | 54p | 39p | 64p |
| Rapid, 26 to 74kW | 59p to 69p | 39p | 59p to 79p |
| Ultra rapid, 75kW and above | 59p to 79p | 39p | 59p to 89p |
Two subscriptions sit on top of that. The Mini costs £4.99 a month and unlocks 49p/kWh or less; the Mega costs £9.99 a month and unlocks 39p/kWh or less, at any hour.
The gap between the cheapest and dearest way of buying the same electricity at the same post is the part worth knowing.
On a 30kWh top up, roughly a third of a typical family EV battery, paying by contactless costs £19.20, the app in daytime costs £16.20, and off peak or on the Mega subscription costs £11.70. That is a spread of £7.50 on one charge, and none of it depends on the car.
The subscription maths follows from the same numbers. The Mega saves 15p/kWh against the daytime app rate on a fast charger, so it pays for its £9.99 once you buy about 67kWh in a month. Against contactless it saves 25p/kWh and pays for itself at about 40kWh, which is one decent charge.
One local detail the price table does not spell out. The rapid point at Alresford Station is a 75kW unit, which on Be.EV’s own bands is ultra rapid, not rapid. That is the band where pay as you go reaches 89p/kWh, so at Alresford in particular it is worth having the app open rather than tapping a bank card.
Where the charge points are
The council’s published table lists 71 charge points at 20 sites. Winchester city has 54 of them, Alresford 7, Bishop’s Waltham 4, Wickham 4, and Kidmore Lane, listed under Waterlooville, 2.
That table does not reconcile with the council’s own headline figure. The news release says 82 points have been installed since 2021, and the EV page says 82 as of June 2026 including 37 dual chargers. The location table lists 71, and a footnote mentions a site at The Brooks that does not appear in the table at all. The council does not explain the difference.
Nine of the 20 sites have at least one rapid unit, which is what you want if you are charging while you shop rather than while you work:
- Alresford Station (75kW)
- Basingwell Street, Bishop’s Waltham (50kW)
- Coach Park, Winchester (two 50kW single units)
- Colebrook Street, Winchester (60kW)
- Harestock, Priors Dean, Winchester (50kW)
- Winchester Leisure Centre (50kW)
- Middle Brook Street, Winchester (60kW)
- St Peter’s, Winchester (60kW)
- Worthy Lane, Winchester (50kW)
Everything else on the list, including the 16 points listed across eight rows at the Vaultex multi-storey, the Guildhall, Tower Street, Friarsgate, Chesil, Wickham Square, Wickham Station and Perins Community School in Alresford, is a fast 22kW or 7.4kW unit. The council also notes that The Brooks is not available around the clock.
The chargers at the Barfield, St Catherine’s and South Winchester park and ride sites are Hampshire County Council’s, not the city council’s, so they are not part of this change.
What it means for you
Download the Be.EV app before your next charge. The council says the Mer app will stop working on these chargers once the transition is done, and no end date for that period has been published. The app is on the App Store and Google Play, and it is also where VAT receipts and charging history live.
Do not tap a bank card if you can avoid it. On a fast council charger, contactless is 64p/kWh against 54p on the app in the daytime, so paying the easy way costs 10p/kWh more, and more again on the rapid units.
Charge after 7pm. The 39p/kWh off peak rate runs from 7pm to 7am on every charger type. On a 30kWh charge that is £4.50 less than the daytime app rate at a fast point.
Parking is still charged separately. The council is explicit that “payment for both the parking space and the charging of the vehicle is required” during a car park’s charging hours, and the signs on site govern. If you are working out an evening in town around the car park tariffs, our Winchester roadworks and travel page tracks what is closed and what is moving.
If something goes wrong at the post, Be.EV’s support line is 0800 917 3208 and its support address is support@be-ev.co.uk. The council does not operate the chargers day to day.
Councillor Kelsie Learney, cabinet member for the climate and nature emergency, said the record usage “shows there is a growing commitment to greener travel across the district”. The figure supports that. Whether the price a driver ends up paying after migration also supports it is the question the council’s own page cannot yet answer, because the new tariffs do not apply until each charger moves across.
Sources
- Winchester City Council, Electric vehicle (EV) charging, last updated 12 August 2026: charge point locations, counts, Be.EV transition, app and payment guidance.
- Winchester City Council, Electric vehicle charging in city council car parks reaches record high, 22 July 2026.
- Be.EV, Pricing and costs, rates as published on 14 August 2026.
- Be.EV, acquisition of Mer’s UK public charging network, 10 February 2026.
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