NWCH restarts race for £1.5bn framework

The North West Construction Hub has reissued tender documents for its £1.5bn high value framework, after terminating the bid process earlier this month.

On 6 February, the NWCH announced it was pulling the bid process “due to a number of issues raised” in connection with the tender process.

The organisation said the changes to the documents would be “minimal” but added these would be “critical to the integrity of our processes”.

Contractors contacted at the time by Place North West suggested some of the language used in the original documents would leave NWCH open to a legal challenge once any contracts were awarded. NWCH did not confirm the reasons for pulling the documents when asked by Place North West.

The updated documents, which can be accessed here, were issued at the end of last week. The original documents were issued by procurement lead Manchester City Council in January, following soft market testing last year.

In a departure from its previous iteration, the framework is being procured across three lots: the first covering works between £8m and £15m; the second covering works ranging between £15m and £35m; and the third including works worth more than £35m.

It is expected that 16 firms will be invited to tender for the first two lots, and 12 will be invited to tender for the third lot.

Contractors can win a place on all three lots, and there will be a maximum of 22 contractors named on the framework.

It will run for three years, with an option for an additional year.

The existing framework, which was awarded in 2014 across two lots, has six construction partners: Bam; Galliford Try; Kier; Laing O’Rourke; Morgan Sindall; and Wates.

Bam covers design & build works only, while Kier covers construction only. The other four contractors have worked across both design & build and construction.

Since its establishment in 2009, the NWCH has delivered around 300 projects for around 80 clients, covering a construction value of more than £1.5bn. Projects have been completed across Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, and Cheshire through the framework.

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