Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2018-03-01
Buyer: Herefordshire Council
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 64200000
Estimated value: 11000000 GBP
Submission deadline: 2018-05-10
Award criteria: The most economic tender
EU fund: ESF

Technical requirements: A consortium of Local authorities lead by Herefordshire Council to deliver and support Wholesale next generation access broadband in the final 5 % of exclusively rural areas.
The Eligible Area includes 56 Lots (13,156 NGA white premises) which have not been superfast enabled by commercial endeavours or as a result of public subsidy. Candidates will be able to bid for any Lot or selection of Lots up to the maximum number.
The project will work alongside a range of existing initiatives; namely Fastershire, connecting Shropshire and Superfast Telford. These initiatives are supporting BDUK funded contracts with BT, Gigaclear and Airband as well as alternative grant funded activity such as the Marches and gloucestershire business broadband grant scheme.
Suppliers wishing to be considered for this opportunity are required to complete and return ‘Use of Existing Infrastructure Code of Conduct’ form, by 12:00 noon 29.3.2018. Failure to do so will render any tender non-compliant.
DEFRA through the Rural payments agency have awarded GBP 10 466 000 to a consortium of Local Authorities lead by Herefordshire Council to deliver the project and support Wholesale next generation access broadband interventions in the “final 5 %” of exclusively rural areas. This funding is from the European agricultural fund for rural development (EAFRD) programme.
56 significant clusters of Next generation access (NGA) white premises have been identified which could offer viable opportunities (given the provision of public subsidy towards the initial capital installation) for private sector suppliers to provide and maintain bespoke NGA capable broadband networks.
In total, the Eligible Area includes 56 Lots and 13,156 NGA white premises which have not been superfast enabled by either commercial endeavours or as a result of public subsidy and are not planned to be enabled in the near future.
The project will work alongside a range of existing initiatives and projects being delivered across the Marches and Gloucestershire to increase the availability of Next generation access broadband; namely Fastershire, connecting Shropshire and superfast Telford. These initiatives are supporting mainstream BDUK funded contracts with BT, Gigaclear and Airband as well as alternative grant funded activity such as the Marches and Gloucestershire Business broadband grant scheme.
The funding is state aid and as such the procurement will be conducted and the contract awarded using BDUK’s new National broadband scheme for the United Kingdom (referred to hereafter as the 2016 NBS).
The eligible area has been designed and refined through the undertaking of an Open Market review between October 9th and November 3rd 2017 and a formal Public Consultation between 1.12.2017 and 3.1.2018. An Industry Day on 10.11.2017 also introduced the intended intervention area and consulted on the selected delivery model of gap funding and the cluster based lotting strategy.
Candidates should note that while all 56 Lots form part of this ITT, Candidates are not required to bid for all 56 and each Lot will be evaluated separately.
Candidates will be able to bid for any Lot or selection of Lots up to the maximum number. However, they are required to provide solutions with no inherent interdependency such that if a subsection of those Lots bid for are not awarded to the candidate, the authorities can be sure that the proposition is not undermined.
Each Lot solution will be evaluated independently and the highest scoring tender will be identified for each Lot.
Note: the locality names just indicate the general location of each cluster. Not every premise in those communities is included whilst premises in other communities are.
Subject to funding, some Lots may not ultimately be awarded regardless of the evaluation; value for money or any other merits of the solution.


Award value: 11000000