Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-12-07
Buyer: Canterbury Christ Church University
Country: UK
Contract type: Works
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 45210000: Building construction work
Estimated value: 5000000 GBP

Technical requirements: Christ Church University Canterbury is seeking to award a contract for the provision of the continued new build as part of a new Arts and Media building.
The proposed Building 1 (Arts Building) is a reinforced concrete frame new build, two, part three storey all above ground structure with a gross internal floor area of approx. 2,500m2. It will house courses run by the School of Media Art and Design & Music and Performing Arts and will be fully funded by the University.
The site is located on the existing North Holmes Road Campus CT1 1QU and has previously been used as a car park. There is a requirement for the building to be completed by August 2018 because the building was marketed to students starting courses in September 2018 at a time when the project was on time and on budget.
The University had commenced a framework call-off procedure using an existing publicly procured construction works framework to tender this two-stage construction opportunity in good time. After holding a mini-competition only 1 bidder returned a compliant tender. This bidder was awarded the contract and commenced work on pre-construction works (Stage 1). However, the University was unable to enter into Stage 2 of the construction contract with this contractor as their final proposal did not meet the minimum requirement (budget).
The University approached the second place bidder from the mini-competition but this bidder was unable to meet the minimum requirement of the timeframe.
Whilst Stage 1 was progressing as a mitigation measure in order to keep to the required programme the concrete frame packages were awarded separately. Taking into account all available options, the University has decided to revert to a negotiated procedure without the prior publication of a contract notice for the reasons set out below and procure a contractor who can comply with the minimum requirements that include time and cost.
The University considers that the use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract under Regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 is justified for the following reasons:
The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 allow contracting authorities to proceed with the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice under three specific circumstances. The University has determined that two of these circumstances apply to this contract.
“Where no tenders, no suitable tenders, no requests to participate or no suitable requests to participate have been submitted in response to an open or a restricted procedure, provided that the initial conditions of the contract are not substantially altered and that a report is sent to the Commission where it so requests”.
Following a procurement exercise under the Southern Construction Framework, only one compliant bid was received by the University and this bid could not be delivered within the budget allocated to the project. Therefore the University considers that no suitable tenders were submitted.
“For reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation cannot be complied with”.
The University is already committed to teaching in the new arts building in September 2018. Therefore the construction needs to be completed in August 2018 to allow time for fit out, orientating and snagging. If these timescales are to be met construction needs to commence in January 2018. Due to an unforeseeable failure of the pre-construction stage (not attributable to the University), there is now a situation of extreme urgency which has been bought about through no fault of the University and the time required for another procedure is not available. As the first tender process, the University ran took 8 weeks to complete the University has determined that it is not possible to run a second tender process and still commence construction in January 2018.
The University has not altered its minimum requirements under the contract (budget and completion date).


Winner: Coombs (Canterbury) Limited
Award value: 5000000