Report on Tenders received for the refurbishment of The Town Hall Auditorium.

Background

Tenders were sought for the refurbishment of the Auditorium to bring it back into use, to comply with DDA requirements and to open up the possibility to provide an area for multi- functional usage including seminars, theatre, wedding receptions etc.

The initial PQQ invited expressions of interest from Contractors, 35 companies replied and an evaluation exercise was carried out to reduce this down to 9 companies.

Tenders were sought in November 2008 with final submission date of 5^th December 2008.

The evaluation criteria for tenders was set at 55% price and 45% quality. Quality was further broken down into various categories (detailed in appendix B of this report)

Tender results ( price only)

Diamond Build Plc £794,695.00

A £823,818.00

B £828,493.00

C £855,130.00

D £888,705.00

E £944,241.16

F £1,084,944.00

G (Withdrew)

H (Withdrew)

Full details of the QS tender evaluation is shown in Appendix A.

Quality assessment

The appointed Panel then carried out a quality evaluation based on submitted tender information. Individual contractor evaluations are included in Appendix C of this report

Summary

Each tender was evaluated on price and quality to arrive at an overall score and final position, this information is detailed in appendix B

Results being:

1^st- Diamond Build Plc

2^nd- A

3^rd- B

4^th- D

5^th- F

6^th- C

7^th- E

Observations

At the time of preparation of initial tender estimate some 10 months previous to returns the market was extremely buoyant with confidence in the countries economic position high, and with Companies experiencing high levels of order books. Construction output was high.

The QS team evaluated work at circa £1.7m and to stay within those parameters some works were removed/not considered for inclusion within

the tender documentation. Given the keenness of tenders received consideration for inclusion of the following should now be considered:

Upgrading of dressing rooms and improvements to first floor toilet area's. Replacement of stage curtains rather than simple clean, Higher specification for audio visual use, upgrading of heating rather than overhaul. Provision of solar panelling etc.

In addition it is anticipated some downtime could occur due to the sensitive location of the work and additional funds would allow `downtime' and potential night working to alleviate potential nuisance whilst operating from set normal working hour arrangements.

Recommendations

To accept the lowest tender received by Diamond Build in the sum of £794,695.00

Additional recommendations

For reasons detailed within the observations section above, consideration and approval be given to a further £400,000 being available for upgrading the specification to accommodate improvements previously omitted from the documentation .Thus allowing full budgetary figure of £1,194,695