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Marie-France van Heel is a director of Be.EV. 

Be.EV holds a £5.4 million contract with Transport for Greater Manchester to supply EV infrastructure and energy.

Marie-France “Frankie” van Heel is Andy Burnham’s wife.

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We frequently hear Andy Burnham’s supporters talk about what a great success Burnham has been as Greater Manchester’s Mayor.  This has led to titles such as “King of the North” and pundits proclaiming Manchester’s rapid economic rise as “Andy Burnham’s Manchesterism,” which they hope he will roll out to the rest of the UK should he become the UK’s Prime Minister.

However, as The Spectator observed, “The idea that Burnham has almost single-handedly turned Greater Manchester into an economic powerhouse against the backdrop of a stagnant Britain is based on numbers that don’t quite add up … a lot of the economic success Burnham now takes credit for were set in motion long before he’d even finished his first term as a minister in the Blair government … But his claims really start to come off the rails when you look at productivity. Burnham’s supporters talk up a Manchester ‘productivity miracle’ but the data underpinning that claim looks a tad dodgy.”

“If Manchester’s growth story is really one of a Potemkin city, then the danger is [if Manchesterism is expanded to wider Britain] we’ll all pay the price for that,” The Spectator concludes. 

By way of explanation, Potemkin cities are urban areas designed to present a misleading or artificial façade of prosperity and functionality, concealing underlying decay, emptiness or humanitarian crises.

Although the public has been subject to numerous political mantras and labels to crown the “King of the North” as the next Prime Minister, since the Makerfield by-election, Burnham has been kept out of the spotlight, almost hidden from public view, with little to no information coming from “the miracle man” himself.  By and large, the public has no idea who Burnham is, what he stands for or what his policies are likely to be.  It’s as if his supporters don’t want the public to know what brand Burnham is and they don’t want Burnham to slip up in front of the public before he takes up residence in Number 10.

Well, now we might have been given some insight into what “Manchesterism” actually is.

This is Marie-France van Heel, she is a director of Be.EV & Iduna Infrastructure, she is also Chief Marketing and Customer Officer for Octopus Energy. In her capacity on both these rolls she secured a contract to supply EV infrastructure and supply energy to Greater 1 of 2 pic.twitter.com/Z20sQSGKJu

— Nick Rolfe ניק רולף (@nickrolfe64) June 22, 2026

Earlier this month, the Daily Mail published an article exposing the corruption at the heart of Andy Burnham’s Manchesterism. The title says it all, ‘How Andy Burnham’s wife is set to profit from the new green revolution championed by her husband in Manchester – James Tozer reveals the controversy – and how she made him an eternal laughing stock’.  People can read the article for themselves but here are the first few paragraphs:

As an evangelist for green technologies, life for Marie-France Van Heel, known as Frankie, is frequently “organised chaos.”

Formerly a high-flying brand consultant, the Dutch-born 56-year-old says she came on board as a senior executive at a thriving Manchester electric car start-up after its growth prospects had been ‘cemented’ by a lucrative local authority deal.

Hundreds of public EV [electric vehicle] chargers in the city and beyond now bear the appropriately green livery of the fast-growing firm, Be.EV.

But it is the crucial seven-year contract awarded to the business – worth £5.4 million to date – which has led to renewed scrutiny over the past fortnight.

That is because the deal in question was with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), responsible for delivering the city region’s elected Mayor Andy Burnham’s transport policies. Which has proved controversial – because Ms. Van Heel also happens to be Mr Burnham’s wife of 26 years.

TfGM’s contract with Be.EV was awarded in 2019. TfGM delivers transport policies for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which was, until recently, headed by Burnham in his role as mayor.

In 2022, Burnham claimed that while his wife’s marketing and brand agency had worked with Be.EV, “Marie-France has no direct financial relationship with Iduna [Be.EV’s parent company]. She does not own any shares in them and does not receive any bonus nor incentive payments from them.”

“In possibly the most damaging moment of Mr Burnham’s two-and-a-bit terms as Mayor, the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) was scrapped, with an estimated £100 million in public money wasted. Far less well-known, however, is how Ms Van Heel’s connections to Be.EV have deepened in the meantime,” the Daily Mail said (hyperlink added).

Related: Government issues statement on Greater Manchester’s Clean Air Zone, Manchester Evening News, 11 November 2025

“Companies House filings show she now owns a modest 252 shares in parent company Iduna Infrastructure … But the Daily Mail has learnt that she is a beneficiary of a long-term incentive plan in the [company].”

The green revolution, which includes a ban on the sale of entirely combustion engine-powered cars from 2030, is expected to lead to a vastly increased number of customers and revenue for companies like Be.EV, which are building Britain’s charging infrastructure, and Be.EV’s footprint in Manchester could give it a head start in the market.

Confirming the company has nationwide ambitions, in 2025, Burnham’s wife said that Be.EV regarded itself as “a national network in the North-West.”

Be.EV’s parent company, Iduna Infrastructure, has received significant investment, including £110 million from an investment fund owned by Octopus Energy and £55 million in debt financing from NatWest and a German bank, to support the rollout of EV charging points.

“Analysts say [Iduna is] well-placed [to] maximise market share and turn a profit once petrol and diesel vehicles are phased out. Investors are certainly betting that Be.EV will be a success.”

And we have to wonder if Be.EV investors are betting on Burnham to become Prime Minister to ensure that success.

Be.EV currently manages 197 EV chargers on behalf of TfGM and has 2,500 charging bays nationally, the Daily Mail said.  Be.EV adds, “and plenty more on the way.”

SP Electricity Northwest notes that the UK government’s ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’ “sets out the UK’s commitment to tackling greenhouse gas emissions, including investing £1.3 billion to roll out EV charging infrastructure on major roads and installing more on-street charge points near homes and workplaces … The UK will also ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, ten years earlier than planned.”

SP Electricity Northwest is a trading name of Electricity North West. It continues: “To facilitate this transition, TfGM secured £3 million in funding from the government’s Clean Air Plan Early Measures Fund and began upgrading the network in 2020 in partnership with Electricity North West and Amey’s new EV charging infrastructure brand, Be.EV.”

SP Electricity North West is part of the Iberdrola group. 

Related: Who Owns Iberdrola Company? BCG Matrix, 19 April 2026

Be.EV is owned by Induna Infrastructure, which also owns Amey.  Induna’s majority shareholder (83%) is Sky Renewables SARL via its subsidiary Sky EV Charging Holdco Limited.  Sky Renewables SARL is owned by Octopus Renewables Infrastructure SCSp. Octopus Renewables Infrastructure SCSp (Octopus Sky Fund) is an open-ended evergreen fund managed by Octopus Renewables Limited, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Octopus Group.

The structure of the Octopus Group is difficult to fathom and would likely require months of research to get to the bottom of. As David Turver said, “Octopus Energy Group Limited (OEGL) is a sprawling empire with dozens of subsidiaries across the energy sector. The largest subsidiary, Octopus Energy Limited, is best known as the largest UK energy supplier with the pink Octopus logo.”  It doesn’t help that company names are replaced by common names, and a lot of those are similar, and that the group seems to be frequently restructuring. For example, read ‘FCA clears acquisition of Octopus Renewables by Octopus Energy’ published by Octopus Energy on 5 July 2021.

According to Wikipedia, the UK-registered company Octopus Capital Limited, commonly referred to as the Octopus Group, was founded by Simon Rogerson, Christopher Hulatt and Guy Myles in 2000.

The Group is owned by the founders and families (45%), employees (18%) and friends, family and employee networks (37%).  Its primary subsidiary, Octopus Energy, has additional external investors, including Generation Investment Management (co-founded by Al Gore), but the holding company itself remains privately owned by its founders, their families and friends, and employees.

One of its subsidiaries is Octopus Energy Generation,  “one of the largest owners of renewable energy infrastructure in Europe” and “is the manager of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust,” Wikipedia says.

The UN Environment Programme states, “Octopus Energy Generation is Europe’s largest investor in solar energy … In September 2021, Octopus Energy Group was valued at $4.6 billion after taking $600 million investment from Generation Investment Management co-founded and chaired by Al Gore … With operations in the US, Japan, Germany, Spain, New Zealand and Australia, Octopus Energy Group’s mission to drive the affordable green revolution is going global.”

Be.EV cuts to the chase about its ownership by stating, “We started in 2019 and we’re majority owned by our friends at Octopus Energy Generation, with the wider Octopus Energy group powering our network with deep green wind and solar energy.”

Be.EV’s current contract with TfGM is due to expire in December 2026 – but with an option to extend it for up to six years.

And, as of March 2026, motorists planning to drive into Greater Manchester have reported receiving CAZ charge warnings on Google Maps, four years after proposals to introduce a restricted area in the city region were scrapped.

This is Andy Burham’s Manchesterism; it’s a foretaste of the wasted money and corruption that will plague Britain should he become Prime Minister.

Related:

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• Be careful what you vote for: Andy Burnham wants to abolish the “no recourse to public funds” policy for migrants
• Andy Burnham or Keir Starmer makes no difference; they are both Fabians