Decision details

To award the Design Works to JBA Consulting

The works are required under the Reservoirs Act 1975, and must be completed (including the construction) by 15th November 2022.
Wingerworth Lido is classed as a large raised reservoir under the Reservoirs Act and as such we are required to appoint a Panel Engineer to inspect and oversee the maintenance of the reservoir. These are specialist works and must be carried out under the supervision of a registered Supervising Panel Engineer (who are appointed by DEFRA). There are currently 21 companies in the UK, not including government bodies or Water Authorities, who can carry out this type of work.
As we had no prior information on likely costs, we assumed that they would be in the region of £10-15,000. We sent an RFQ to three companies, two of whom we have worked with previously and knew to be good value, to request a quote for the works. We received a quote for design and supervision from our current Supervising Engineer of £31,196+VAT, attached, (who had also carried out the initial option study) but the other two companies declined to quote, one verbally and one by email. One company explained that it is not best practice to produce plans based on other company’s calculations; the other declined as recently as 25th April 2022 after agreeing to quote for the works. We have since approached another six companies (who work locally), to ensure we have a benchmark for the costs but only one responded to say that they would quote. This quote has not yet been received
The works are required to be carried out by 15th November 2022 – including the implementation of the scheme. It is likely to take six months for the design, tender and implementation of the scheme. Due to the time restraints for the works to be carried out and the risk of prosecution, we do not have sufficient time to carry out the standard procurement procedure.

Don’t appoint JBA and carry out a full tender through procurement. This would result in us failing to comply with the requirements set out in the Section 10 Report, and would lead to either a “warning”, “formal caution” or “prosecution”.