River Thames Scheme - Construction Partner - Market Engagement

This notice is only an invitation to express interest to participate in a market engagement exercise for the River Thames Scheme. The Environment Agency and Surrey County Council, through a collaboration partnership, are issuing this PIN for the purpose of seeking organisations that wish to take part in Market Engagement exercises, Phase 1 to Phase 5 before we start a formal procurement process, for which a separate contract notice will be issued. Organisations should ensure that they express their interest for all the relevant phases of the market engagement process so that their intent is correctly noted by the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency has already developed outline design proposals and an initial procurement and contract strategy for the delivery phases of the River Thames Scheme, which will involve a range of works to reduce flood risk from the River Thames between Egham Hythe, Staines and Teddington weir. The Environment Agency intends to test this strategy and the outline design proposals through Phase 1, 2 and 3 of the Market Engagement whilst undertaking the Environmental Impact Assessment and preparing for the consenting process.

Our current project programme intends to initiate publishing a contract notice and the tender documents in the autumn of 2022 with contract award anticipated in summer 2024 (subject to required approvals). We are seeking feedback from the supply market to help us shape our current strategy, design, contracting and risk management proposals to ensure delivery in the most efficient and effective way.

The Environment Agency are looking to bring on board a Construction Partner for the River Thames Scheme. Our current project programme aims to initiate a procurement exercise in autumn of 2022 with contract award anticipated summer 2024 (subject to required approvals).

Up to July 2020, the RTS included a flood channel in three sections but, following confirmation of the funding position, channel section 1 is now removed. The scope of the Construction Partner Contract and main works include the detailed design and construction of new flood channel built in 2 channel sections:​

First section (Runnymede channel) - Egham Hythe to Chertsey Second section (Shepperton channel) - Laleham to Shepperton​

Additional information: The market engagement exercise will be carried out in phases and each phase will have a different focus. The phased market engagement process is due to run from July 2021 - Autumn 2022, at which point the Environment Agency will progress with the pre- tender briefing phase.

An overview of each phase and anticipated timescales have been provided below:

Phase 1 Strategy Testing (July - December 2021): This phase will test and seek market feedback on our procurement and contract strategy and current commercial approach; Phase 2 Tier 2 and SME engagement (August 2021 - Jan 2022): This is a targeted engagement event to receive feedback from Tier 2 and SME's in the NEC scope planning and risk approach; Phase 3 Design, scope and site information (April - September 2022) : An opportunity for the market to review our outline design proposals, survey information, summary of our constraints, construction planning, site information etc. that will become part of the NEC ECC Scope; Phase 4 Contract Testing (February - May 2022: This phase will test and seek market feedback on the draft contract, contract risk allocation, incentive model etc; Phase 5 tender briefing (November 2022): This phase will provide an overview of our tender process and tender requirements prior to issuing the formal contract notice and tender documents.

Additional information: Additional information will be provided via the Defra e-sourcing portal, Bravo, which can be accessed using this link https://defra.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.html. Interested suppliers must register on the portal, then search for the project code - 33469 or project title - River Thames Scheme - Construction Partner, in the "Current Opportunities" area.

Please ensure that your organisation is registered in order to gain access to the briefing documents and questionnaires to take part in the Phase 1 Strategy testing of the market engagement process. In case of any queries, please email: [email protected]