Appointment

Folkestone and Hythe appoints consultant for Lyminge cottages redevelopment

By Staff Writer  |  24 August 2026

Folkestone and Hythe District Council has appointed Modus Construction Consultants Limited to the employer's agent, quantity surveyor and clerk of works role for the redevelopment of Woodland Cottages at Lyminge in Kent, at a contract value of 125,000 pounds excluding value added tax. The award notice was published on 24 August 2026 at 10:44am under the identifier 2026/S 000-080215 and carries the reference FH2605280.

The description records that the council wished to select and appoint a suitable consultant for the redevelopment of Woodland Cottages, Lyminge, Kent, and invited prospective suppliers to submit a tender. The contract was expected to start in July 2026 and to continue for a period of approximately four years to complete RIBA stages 1 to 6, with the option to extend for a further period or periods of up to twelve months.

The contract value is 125,000 pounds excluding value added tax and 150,000 pounds including it, and the award is recorded as below the relevant threshold. The award decision date is 21 August 2026 and the earliest date the contract will be signed is 28 August 2026. Contract dates run from 7 September 2026 to 6 July 2030, with a possible extension to 6 July 2031 described on the notice as a further period or periods totalling up to twelve months, or as needed to complete construction. The main procurement category is services and the procedure was below threshold open competition.

Eleven bids, all from smaller firms

The tender information section records eleven tenders received and eleven assessed at the final stage, all eleven submitted by small and medium sized enterprises and none by a voluntary, community or social enterprise. One supplier was awarded and ten were unsuccessful. The successful firm is recorded on the notice as a small or medium sized enterprise based at Faversham in Kent.

Eleven bidders for a consultancy commission of 125,000 pounds is a crowded field, and the four year duration is the other half of the picture. A firm winning this commits a team across RIBA stages 1 to 6, from preparation and briefing through to handover, for a fee that averages a little over 31,000 pounds a year before any extension.

Three roles in one appointment

The appointment combines the employer's agent, the quantity surveyor and the clerk of works. The notice does not explain how the three are to sit together, and the combination is worth attention. An employer's agent administers the contract on the employer's behalf and issues instructions and certificates. A quantity surveyor values the work and assesses the cost of change. A clerk of works inspects the works on site and reports on quality and conformity.

Held by one firm across a four year programme, that arrangement concentrates the administration, the valuation and the inspection of the same works in a single appointment. On a design and build procurement the employer's agent role is usually the pivot on which the employer's position under the building contract turns, because it is the employer's agent who certifies, who deals with changes, and who assesses extensions of time. The notice does not name the building contract the scheme will be procured under, and the appointment covers the design stages as well as construction, so the form is not settled on the face of the record.

What the record does not say

The notice does not describe the scheme. It gives no number of homes, no floor area, no construction value, no tenure and no planning position for Woodland Cottages. It records the contract location as East Kent and the classification as architectural, construction, engineering and inspection services, and it says nothing about whether the existing cottages are to be refurbished, replaced or a mixture of the two. The word redevelopment carries the whole description of the scheme.

Two dates on the notice sit oddly together and are recorded here as published. The description says the contract was expected to start in July 2026, while the contract dates section gives an estimated start of 7 September 2026 with the earliest signature date on 28 August 2026. The earlier tender notice for the same procurement, identifier 2026/S 000-050492, was published on 28 May 2026, so an expectation written into a May tender document and a September start recorded in an August award notice are not in conflict; they are simply the same commission at two points in a procurement that took roughly three months from advertisement to award.