Victoria Tower Fabric Safety - Main Works

Victoria Tower, as part of the Palace of Westminster, is a world renowned heritage asset. Acknowledged by its Grade I listed designation and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Victoria Tower is 325 ft tall and is sited above Sovereign's Gate at the south-west end of the Palace site. The Tower was originally designed as a royal entrance and a repository for the records of Parliament and is currently home to the Parliamentary Archives although these are in the process of being moved elsewhere.

Significant repairs were last undertaken to Victoria Tower in the early 1990s. The building fabric has deteriorated in the intervening period, and it is now necessary to undertake repairs to the external envelope of Victoria Tower via a full-height scaffold.  Parliament is exercising their duty of care to prevent future deterioration of the building fabric as custodians of this Grade I Listed asset and to maintain a safe and secure environment in and around the Palace of Westminster.

This notice relates to the Contracting Authority's intention to appoint a contractor under NEC4 ECC Option B contract (with secondary clauses and amendments), to deliver temporary works, and subsequent conservation and repair work, to the Victoria Tower.

The Contracting Authority will maintain design responsibility for all the fabric related design throughout the project lifecycle (with the exception of specialist Contractor's Design items which will be defined during the process). The RIBA Stage 4 design for the scaffold and associated temporary works will be developed by the Contractor who will assume overall design responsibility for these packages inclusive of piling.

The Parliamentary Commercial Directorate uses an e-tendering portal (hosted by Atamis) to manage its procurement processes. Interested suppliers wishing to participate are required to complete and return a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and provide Cyber Essentials certification, prior to accessing the ITT.

Following receipt of NDAs and Cyber Essentials certification to the Authority, tenderers will be requested to provide a name and email address of a user to access the SharePoint site. These details shall be submitted by the tenderer using the Atamis portal. On receipt of these details, access rights to read documents will be set up in SharePoint. Access will be made available following receipt of an activation email which will be issued directly to the user.

Where a supplier is already registered on Atamis, a new user should select to join their existing supplier account when prompted. Users joining an existing supplier account will be approved by the primary contact of the supplier. If the primary contact has left the business without passing on this role, please e-mail [email protected].

Registering on the e-tendering portal does not mean you are a supplier to either the House of Commons or House of Lords.