Devonshire Park

Devonshire Park is owned by Eastbourne Borough Council who has an ambition to see it become a cultural destination and for it to be one of the most talked about locations in the South East. On the 18 March 2015 the Council’s Cabinet approved the work to take the scheme to the next stage of achieving planning permission and estimating detailed costs to achieve a £40m scheme (RIBA Stage 3). The Cabinet will receive a further report after Stage 3 (anticipated to be December 2015) at which time it will be in a position to decide, on the balance of risks, whether to go forward and commission the development.

This notice is not a call for competition. The Council wishes to undertake preliminary market consultations with potential contractors to gain their input and expertise into the developing proposals and help it to shape the project to its greatest potential.

Due to the estimated construction costs the procurement for the contractors to undertake the development work for the project will need to follow one of the procedures set out in the Public Contract Regulations 2015 and advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The construction work will be phased due to the complexity of the site and the different and unique nature of each of the phases. The Council is intending to take this into account in the procurement process and approximately 70 weeks has been allowed in the programme, starting in August 2015, to undertake the entire procurement process.

Within the overall envelope of £40-42m there are a number of component projects ranging in value from £1-2m, £5m - 7m, and up to £10-12m. As part of the development work the Council is considering letting each component as a separate contract as well as potentially letting as one overall contract. The Council are therefore very much interested in receiving responses from small - mid size organisations as well as larger organisations that could take on the whole project.

The proposed timetable is as follows:

Confirm Attendance at Contractor’s Session: Friday 29th May 2015 17.00pm Contractor’s Session: Wednesday 3 June 2015 10.00am Deadline for return of Market Questionnaire: Tuesday 9 June 17.00pm Invitations to Focussed Discussions: Thursday 11 June 2015 Focussed Discussions with Contractors: w/c 15 June 2015

For further details on the project please refer to the Prior Indicative Notice issued to OJEU by the Council (http://ted.europa.eu) with the title: UK-Eastbourne: Construction work.

Further information in relation to these matters and the preliminary market consultation process and how to confirm your attendance at the Contractors Day, obtain and to return a copy of the market questionnaire are in the additional information section of this notice and the documents attached to this Contract Finder notice.

Additional information: All discussions and meetings will be conducted in English and the contract will be subject to English law.

REGISTERING AN INTEREST TO ATTEND THE OPEN SESSION: The Open Session will take place on Wednesday 3 June 2015 starting at 10.00am at the Gold Room, Devonshire Park Centre, Compton Street, Eastbourne, BN21 4EQ. If you would like to attend the open session then please email the details of those who will attend from your organisation to [email protected] by 17.00pm Friday 29 May 2015 so that appropriate arrangements can be made to accommodate those who would like to attend. Please head your email: Attendance at Contractor’s Session – Devonshire Park.

FURTHER INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR OBTAINING AND COMPLETION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE and PARTICIPATING IN THE FOCUSSED DISCUSSIONS: are obtainable as downloadable attachments on the Council's notice issued on the Contract Finder procurement portal. Completed questionnaires should be returned to [email protected] as instructed by 17.00 on Tuesday 9 June 2015 otherwise they may not be considered. If you have difficulties obtaining the downloads please contact Paul Quanstrom at the email above. In order to provide information and context to help develop responses, the Cabinet Report of 18 March 2015 is available from the Contract Finder portal or is available at: (http://democracy.eastbourne.gov.uk/documents/s3145/070%20Devonshire%20Park%20project.pdf)

Participation and the costs and expenses of doing so are entirely at the risk of economic operators and will not be refunded by the contracting authority under any circumstances. The contracting authority shall not be responsible for any costs, charges or expenses incurred by participants and accepts no liability for any costs, charges or expenses, irrespective of the outcome of the competition, or if the competition is cancelled or postponed.

All dates and time periods specified in this notice are only provisional and the contracting authority reserves the right to change these.

The contracting authority reserves the right to not run any form of competition or award any or part of this contract.

Completion of the market questionnaire and any involvement in the preliminary market consultation does not confer any right or expectation that the organisation will be selected for any future tender should a procurement exercise be undertaken.