Project launch

City of London brings Barbican demolition package to market

By Staff Writer  |  02-09-2026

The City of London Corporation has published a planned procurement notice for the demolition and structures package on the Barbican Renewal Programme, valued at 16,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax. Four contractors, and only four, will be carried through to tender. Expressions of interest close at noon on 19 October 2026.

The notice was published at 09:56 on 2 September 2026. It is a planned procurement notice, which signals a procurement rather than opening one, and the Corporation records that a further notice is due by 21 September 2026. The value is 16,000,000 pounds net and 19,200,000 pounds gross, exactly 1.2 times, so value added tax at 20 per cent and nothing else. The work is classified as demolition work, recorded as works and above threshold, with delivery in London.

Enquiries close at noon on 9 October 2026. Expressions of interest close at noon on 19 October 2026. The award period ends on 19 February 2027.

What the package covers

The subject is refurbishment and alteration of an occupied Grade II listed concrete building completed between 1965 and 1982. The Corporation states in terms that this is not new build, and sets out a philosophy of minimal structural intervention: work with the capacity the building already has, and justify retained elements without strengthening them wherever that can be done.

The package carries demolition, enabling works, temporary works, and primary structural design and construction across the first phase of the renewal works areas. Alongside it runs a sitewide contractor design portion covering secondary and tertiary steelwork, non loadbearing masonry, builders work openings, the reuse of steel and other design responsibilities adjacent to the structure. A defined allocation of architectural fabric removal, which the notice calls advanced works, sits here as well, together with a smaller number of new internal partitions and screeds prepared by the architect. Those items are placed in this package because they come before, depend upon, or fall in the same place as the demolition and strip out sequence.

The named areas are the infrastructure and sitewide structural works, demolition and strengthening at level 3 of the Conservatory, dismantling and re-decking of the Foyers bridge steelwork with demolition of the foyer shop and coordination of shaft openings, slab modifications to shafts 08 to 11 across several levels of the catering block, and structural coordination at Stair 8.

How the competition runs

The route is the competitive flexible procedure, run in two stages. Stage one is an invitation to participate. Stage two is an invitation to tender made up of structured workshops and site visits with the shortlisted candidates, a technical submission, a commercial submission and an interview. The minimum and the maximum number of candidates at the second stage are both four, so the shortlist is fixed rather than a range.

Selection at the first stage turns on conditions of participation covering financial capacity, insurance, modern slavery and data protection, together with scored questions on experience. The highest scoring bidders who meet the conditions go through. At the workshops the Corporation and its design team will formally set out the constraints and risks, which the notice lists as working in an occupied building, heritage constraints, restricted access and logistics, and sequencing tied to phases and closure periods.

The risk the notice puts in writing

The Corporation records that the contract may need to be modified if the project overruns, so that continuation of service is maintained and the supplier's technical expertise is retained, for example to carry out additional works. A contractor pricing this package should read that beside the constraints listed for the workshops. An occupied listed building, restricted access and a programme tied to closure periods are the conditions in which delay and disruption disputes ordinarily arise, and the authority has said before tender that overrun is a scenario it has in mind.

No contract period, no start date, no tenderer count and no award criteria weightings appear on the notice, and none is assumed here.