Overview
Bristol Floating Harbour is over 250 years old and is an integral part of the city’s increasing popularity, being a significant attraction. Functioning as a commercial dock until the mid-1970s, the harbour is now a major tourist attraction with museums, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, whilst also maintaining a working shipyard. The Harbour Festival, held annually, is one of the country’s largest free festivals.
To enable more opportunities for income generation on the quayside and on the water, whilst supporting wildlife, significant investment is needed. By increasing the number of moorings available, together with integrated floating ecosystems, this will maximise profitability and provide habitat connectivity within the harbour - linking with protected habitats nearby to improve movement and provide homes for wildlife. This will provide biodiversity and climate resilience for the city.
The Challenge
The Biodiversity in Bristol Floating Harbour Report (Arup, 2022) identified potential biodiversity-led interventions that could be applied throughout the Floating Harbour. Floating habitats are one of the seven habitat typologies identified. Applied as modular systems throughout the harbour, these will improve habitat connectivity and increase the attractiveness of the area. There is a wealth of evidence that a green environment attracts business investment and tourism.
In September 2022, Bristol City Council (BCC) were successful in a bid to the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) for funding from their Green Recovery Fund. The award, to install 700 square metres of floating ecosystems to a total project value of £480,000, was made on the basis of ‘match-funding’ with another project to install 34 new pontoon berths at Capricorn Quay in Bristol Floating Harbour. The floating ecosystems will be installed near to the new berths and will be designed to improve water quality and provide habitats for wildlife. BCC will manage the work as two separate projects.
The Scope
Objective 1: Creation of new habitat and enhancement of Bristol Ecological Network, both its connectivity and functionality.
Objective 2: Improve abundance of species by provision of habitat that will benefit a variety of species including fish, birds, and pollinators.
Objective 3: Improve water quality.
Objective 4: Community engagement in management and monitoring to benefit health and wellbeing and wider understanding of the effectiveness of ecosystems.
Objective 5: Create new opportunities for the public to get closer to the water on a stretch of the harbour where access is currently limited.
Objective 6: Provide opportunities for development of green skills and new green jobs.
Initial Budget set at £480,000.
Approach to market
To ensure BCC followed a compliant route to market, a thorough search was undertaken to establish whether there were any suitable internal Council or National Frameworks which could deliver the Scope of Works in a cost-effective and timely manner. This proved fruitless and the Project Team with assistance from V4 decided to use the Open Market Procedure, as this approach:
- Will make the whole market aware of the opportunity.
- Involve more Interested Suppliers who will have Capability and Capacity.
Formal Procurement Approach
V4 managed this process:
- Reviewed, compiled, and issued Tender documents via ProContract.
- Tender Clarifications.
This resulted in one tender being received due to the specialist nature of the requirements.
The outcome
V4 were responsible for the following:
- Scoring the Mandatory selection Questionnaire with the Project Manager (PM).
- Managing the process with regards to excluding suppliers who failed the Selection Criteria
Consequently, one remaining supplier was evaluated against the Stage 2 Award Criteria
- Tender clarifications were managed and responses co-ordinated with the evaluation team.
- Undertook the complete commercial evaluation of the Activity Schedule to ensure that the prices received were compliant, accurate, and that there were no erroneous rates. This required in-depth knowledge of Construction and Estimation of Contract rates to ensure that the suppliers could deliver on price.
The biggest challenge was ensuring that competition was maintained throughout the tender process, as there was only one supplier who returned a tender due to the specialist nature of this project and the sustainability requirements to use recyclable materials.
- Managing the scoring with the internal and external consultants to ensure fairness and to reduce the risk of challenge to BCC.
- Finalising contract terms with Successful Supplier to ensure no issues after Award.
- Reviewed and checked the scoring from the External Social Value team.
- Compiled the scoring, issued the tender Award reports for approval.
- Issued the award letter.
- Published External Award Notices.
- Prepared the Contract Documents and managed the Contract Execution process (saving the Council £3,000 in external Solicitor legal fees).
- Award notices and Procontract was managed to ensure that this was then pushed to Proactis where the contract was managed by the Council.
The contract was let at £384,000 which was £96,000 or 25% below the Project Manager’s estimate.
The programme was maintained, and the works commenced 30th April 2024 and will complete on 31st October 2024 as per programme.
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