I think you can only stay on the contribution based esa if your placed in the protected group and if your not you will be switched over to the income based automatically.
They keep sending me just the form to fill every year to switch to try and trick me into switching, but i have refused as my partner, now wife, always intended to go back to work and when she did that would meen my benefit would stop and i’d be living off her. Doubt I’d get a grant now either due to her income and my benefit being classed as an incomeand is another reason I recently left the scheme.