Blackpool Council is keeping its options open about the type of framework it will use to procure £188m of coastal protection works.
In 2022, the council gave authority to use the EA’s collaborative delivery framework to choose designers and contractors for two schemes.
But a new report, to be discussed at a meeting of Blackpool Council’s executive next week, recommends that authority be given to “use alternative coastal protection framework contractors if necessary”, and states that “it is appropriate that the council have flexibility in terms”. of using all appropriate delivery frameworks available to ensure value for money”.
Last year the EA awarded the council £61m for coastal defenses at Bispham and Cocker Square. The report says the agency has also awarded £57m for works in the city centre.
The cost of both projects has increased significantly, the report says, with an initial profile of £12m. This is due to the increasing size and volume of schemes, the report says. It also says both the council and the EA are aware that “the material costs, in particular, of these schemes have the potential to increase prices due to inflation”.
The report added that “the use of these frameworks can now involve competitive tendering, ensuring that the council achieves value for money”.
In the northwest center of the EA framework, the consultant is Jacobs and VolkerStevin is the contractor. Companies listed in other regional EA frameworks include Bam Nuttall, Arup and Kier.
The EA recently announced that its collaborative delivery framework, which originally ran until 2023, would continue until 2027. Launched in 2019, it is part of the £5.2 billion capital investment program of the organism.
In April, the agency said the framework would “help [to] mitigate and reduce climate change [our] impacts, while supporting the delivery target of better protecting hundreds of thousands of properties from coastal erosion and flooding.”
