Designing Nature Based Solutions and Supply and Installation of Playground for Avenue Gardens Estate

The Council / WCC is seeking to appoint a contractor who will provide the design, supply and installation of future proofing measures, turnkey playground solution, as well as associated works for the Avenue Gardens Estate

The future proofing measures consist of adaptation and mitigation measures to protect against extreme weather risks like heatwaves, urban heat islands, droughts, storms and flooding. These measures will be included in the overall works and form part of the new turnkey playground area

The contractor will also need to create a design for the Avenues playground that will incorporate climate proofing measures which will be consistent and work in harmony with the estate climate proofing designs and inclusive of the provision of all associated equipment and installation.

The playground must be ready for inspection by 16 March 2026, and the playground open to the public on Monday 23 March 2026

Site Visits are planned for 23/24 of June 2025, Bidders will need to schedule appoint with WCC via the messaging function on the portal.

The estimated tender cost is £385,000 (excluding VAT), this amount is for designing a nature based solution for Avenue Gardens Estate and the removal and install of new playground with 3 nature based solutions. If the council decides to implement (Element 2)  the nature based solutions for the Avenue Estate Gardens, the estimated contract value for this contract will be £550,000 (excluding VAT).

There will be 2 elements for this procurement:

Element 1- Using the original mock design playground design created by WCC Place Shaping for 7 -11-year-olds, the contractor will remove the existing playground and design and build a new playground including alleyway which will incorporate the NBS interventions.

Element 2 – Contractors will need to provide an estate wide design for nature-based solution (NBS). This design will include the following three NBS interventions: rainwater, permeable parking space and diverting rainwater from downpipe. This design will be owned by WCC and will be used for benchmarking exercise across other WCC estates. Once this is design is finalised by WCC, another procurement activity will be carried out at a later stage for the build of the agreed interventions.

There will be two phases of this procurement.

Phase 1: will contain WCC’s qualification envelope where we will be using Common Assessment Standard (CAS). Bidders will also be requested to provide 2 experience statements which will be scored from 0 to 5, and up to 6 bidders will taken through the next round.

Phase 2: will contain 2 envelopes technical and commercial. In the technical envelope, bidders will be requested to answer the technical question which will be based on the project requirements.

In the commercial envelope bidders will be asked to cost the initial/mock design for the playground which WCC will provide and be asked for basket of goods.

Bidders will also be asked to provide their costs for designing and installing (basket of goods) the nature-based solutions for the wider estate.