Decision details

The report is to seek approval of the strategy outlined for the procurement of a contractor to undertake pre-construction services for design and build works for early stages of the Sheffield Retail Quarter development, and to authorise the commencement of the first stage of this strategy which is to issue expressions of interest and engage the YORbuild contractors in the first stage of the tender process.

It should be noted that this procurement strategy is separate to the development partner procurement which is in the final stages of its process”.

That the Cabinet Member:-

(i) approves the strategy outlined in this report for the procurement of a contractor to undertake pre-construction services for design and build works for early stages of the Sheffield Retail Quarter development; and

(ii) delegate’s authority to the Director of Capital & Major Projects in consultation with the Director of Commercial Services to:

commence the first stage of the procurement process by issuing expressions of interest and engaging the YORbuild contractors in the first stage of the tender process as set out in this report.

The Council is currently undertaking the development process for the Sheffield Retail Quarter.

To mitigate risks on the project, it is prudent to engage with the construction market regarding cost and programme issues.

Discussions with potential tenants for the Sheffield Retail Quarter require this more detailed information to be obtained and hence the need to obtain construction contractor input at the earliest opportunity without the obligation to place any orders for works.

The Council has considered alternative tender options but these are not considered suitable or feasible in this instance. The other options considered where:

Open tender – as the project is likely to be publicly funded, the procurement process must be compliant with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. However these Regulations specify a minimum time for the tender period. This is in excess of the time allowed in the programme and therefore in this instance an open tender is not considered feasible.

SCAPE – SCAPE is a Public Contract Regulations compliant framework and is similar to YORBuild, however, this framework can only be used for works up to £30m in value and therefore would not be suitable for the Sheffield Retail Quarter works.