Contract award

Karbon Homes places three contractors on an extra care framework

By Staff Writer  |  03-09-2026

Karbon Homes has appointed Robertson Construction Group Limited, Caddick Construction Limited and Esh Construction Ltd. to an open framework for principal contractor services on extra care housing across the North East of England and Yorkshire and the Humber. The award decision was taken on 2 September 2026 and the award notice was published at 10:40am on 3 September 2026.

The framework was let by open procedure under the Procurement Act 2023. Karbon Homes describes the requirement on the face of the notice:

The Authority invites Suppliers to provide a submission to establish a Framework Agreement for Principal Contractor services to deliver an Extra Care facility and housing (including specialist 124-bed scale schemes) and associated housing works.

Karbon Homes, contract award notice

Three contracts, three separate values, one framework. The largest is more than five times the smallest, and the notice records no unsuccessful supplier at all.

What was awarded

Three contracts are published, each to a single supplier and each with its own value excluding value added tax. Robertson Construction Group Limited takes 120,000,000 pounds, given also as 144,000,000 pounds including value added tax. Caddick Construction Limited takes 66,000,000 pounds, or 79,200,000 pounds including tax. Esh Construction Ltd. takes 22,000,000 pounds, or 26,400,000 pounds including tax. The three published figures add up to 208,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax. That total is arithmetic on the notice rather than a figure the notice states, and no value appears on the card for that reason.

All three carry the same dates. The award decision was taken on 2 September 2026 and assessment summaries went to tenderers the same day. The earliest date any of the three contracts will be signed is 15 September 2026. The estimated contract period runs from 21 September 2026 to 20 September 2031, with a possible extension to 20 September 2033, which the notice records as seven years. The extension recorded against each contract is up to a further two years in twelve month increments, subject to performance and need.

The main procurement category is works and the classification on all three is construction work for subsidised residential accommodation. The contract locations are Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East of England. Each of the three is recorded as above the relevant threshold.

The commercial tool is recorded as an open framework, which the notice explains as a series of frameworks on substantially the same terms, where awarded suppliers are carried over and new suppliers can bid. That distinction decides what a contractor outside the three should do next. A closed framework running to 2033 tells a competitor to look elsewhere for seven years. An open one tells it to be ready for the next round. The notice does not say when this framework reopens, so the date a contractor would need is not on the record.

What the tender numbers show

Five tenders were received. Three were assessed in the final stage, none of them submitted by a small or medium sized enterprise and none by a voluntary, community or social enterprise. Three suppliers were awarded contracts. The notice records nought suppliers as unsuccessful, with the standard note that details are included for contracts over 5,000,000 pounds.

Two of the five tenders therefore did not reach the final stage, and the notice does not say why. Nor does it record those two as unsuccessful. The two counts are not reconciled anywhere on the face of the record, and nothing here should be read as a finding that either tender was rejected. What the notice supports is that five came in and three were assessed.

One number in the description governs the work itself: specialist schemes at 124 bed scale. Extra care housing of that size is not general needs housing with grab rails. It carries a care suite, communal catering, assisted bathing, staff accommodation and the mechanical and electrical load that follows, and the operator has to be able to run it from the day it opens. A framework that puts facilities of that kind alongside associated housing works spans two different pricing exercises, and the structure that would usually separate them is absent, because there are no lots on this notice and no ranking between the three suppliers.

What is not published

The notice gives no call off procedure and no allocation of work between the three suppliers beyond the three separate values. It does not say whether those values are ceilings for each supplier or shares of a single sum. It publishes no scheme list, no programme and no rates. Because no tenderer is recorded as unsuccessful, no assessment summary detail appears on the record either.