Tender

Peterhead cancels quay extension supervision tender over changed works information

By Staff Writer  |  27 August 2026

Peterhead Port Authority has cancelled the professional services competition for the Smith Quay extension. The contract award notice, identifier 081604-2026, was published on 27 August 2026 at 9:33am and records the tender as cancelled and the single award under it as unsuccessful, with the status given as discontinued.

The reason is stated on the notice itself. It says the professional services tender is cancelled because of considerable changes to the Work Information, and that a new notice will be posted with revised Works Information in due course.

The appointment that has been pulled is the supervision of the works, not the works themselves. The port authority was seeking a consultant to provide Project Manager and Supervisor services under NEC4 for the construction of what the notice describes as a 30 million pound extension to Smith Quay.

What the works are, and who is already appointed

The notice sets out the scheme behind the appointment. The works are an 83 metre extension to the existing 120 metre long Smith Quay, together with a mooring dolphin, 10,000 square metres of concrete paved laydown areas and associated site infrastructure and quayside furniture. The delivery address is Smith Quay, Peterhead, AB42 1DW.

Two of the three parties a scheme of that size needs are already in place. The port authority records that it has engaged NIRAS to develop and complete the design, and that a contractor has been engaged under the SCAPE Scotland Utilities Framework Agreement to provide early contractor input during the design stage. The notice states that contractor is expected to be confirmed to deliver the works under the same framework agreement.

So the document being changed is the one that tells both of those parties what they are building, and the appointment being re-advertised is the one that will administer the contract once they start.

The document being changed is the one that defines the job

The cancellation sentence calls the changed document the Work Information. The next sentence, describing what will be issued, calls it the Works Information. The notice does not say which of the two it means, and it does not describe what has changed or by how much.

For anyone pricing the replacement appointment when it appears, that is the first thing to establish. A supervision fee bid is built on the scope of the works being supervised, the duration of the construction period and the number of interfaces the supervisor has to police. A change described only in general terms, on a quay extension carrying a laydown area, a mooring dolphin and marine works, could move any of those three.

It is also the cheaper moment for it to happen. The document is being changed before the appointment is made rather than after, so the port authority is paying for a re-advertisement rather than for a variation to a live contract.

How it was to be scored, and what happens now

The award criteria are published on the notice and they are worth keeping, because a re-advertised competition may or may not repeat them. Price carried 40 out of 100. Quality carried the remaining 60, split as contract management at 35, references and additional information at 15, and legal information at 10.

A weighting that puts 35 marks on contract management alone says what the port authority was worried about, and it fits a project where the designer and the early contractor are already appointed and the missing role is the one that holds the ring between them.

The competition was run as an open procedure. The buyer is recorded on the notice both as the buyer and as a central purchasing body, and its activity is classified as port related. The legal basis cited on the release is the utilities procurement rules rather than the general public contracts rules, which is the ordinary position for a port authority procuring for its own port operations. The review body named on the notice is Peterhead Sheriff Court. The classification attached to the requirement is construction project management services.

No value is published for the professional services contract itself. The 30 million pound figure on the notice is the value of the works to be supervised, and it should not be read as the value of the appointment that has just been cancelled.

The notice promises a replacement and gives no date for it. Until that appears, the published position is that a 30 million pound marine works scheme has a designer, an early contractor involvement partner and no appointed project manager or supervisor. Consultants who priced the first competition will want to compare the two scopes line by line rather than repricing from the first bid, because the port authority has said in terms that the basis has moved.