Contract award
North Ayrshire awards the Girdle Toll to Irvine route design
By Staff Writer | 06-09-2026
North Ayrshire Council has recorded an award for the detailed design of the Girdle Toll to Irvine active travel route. The contract was signed on 31 August 2026 at 145,921.17 pounds excluding value added tax. One tender was received, the award criterion on the notice is price, and the commission runs from 2 September 2026 to 31 March 2027.
A design commission that follows its own feasibility study
The scope on the record is consultancy services to undertake detailed design, stages 3 and 4, for the route. The description of the procurement sets out what the appointment is expected to produce.
Building on the feasibility study and preliminary design completed by AtkinsRéalis UK Limited in 2025/26, the commission will deliver all design, survey and supporting documentation required to progress the project to a construction-ready stage.
North Ayrshire Council, contract award notice
The contractor is recorded at section V.2.3 as AtkinsRealis, of 2 Atlantic Square, Glasgow, and the notice records that it is not a small or medium sized enterprise. The same release spells the firm AtkinsRéalis UK Limited in the description of the procurement, where it is named as the author of the earlier feasibility study and preliminary design, so the practice that prepared the preliminary work is the practice now taking the detailed design forward. The notice does not say whether the earlier work was let separately or under the same arrangement.
Continuity of designer between the preliminary and detailed stages carries a consequence the record does not address. Where one practice develops a scheme through both stages, the assumptions made at feasibility travel into the construction information without a second party testing them. Nothing on the release indicates whether a design review by anyone else is required before the drawings are issued for construction.
The route itself is described by the connections it is meant to make.
The proposed route will improve active travel connectivity between Girdle Toll, Bourtreehill, Broomlands and Irvine Town Centre and support future delivery through the Active Travel Infrastructure Fund (ATIF).
North Ayrshire Council, contract award notice
One tender, and price as the only criterion
The value of 145,921.17 pounds excluding value added tax appears twice on the notice, once as the total value of the procurement at section II.1.7 and once as the total value of the contract at section V.2.4. No initial estimated value is recorded beside it, so the figure cannot be read against a budget the council set.
The bid statistics record one tender received, none from a small or medium sized enterprise, none from tenderers in European Union member states, one from a tenderer outside them, and none received by electronic means. The contract was not awarded to a group of economic operators, and the procurement was not divided into lots.
The award criteria section carries a single entry, price. On an open procedure that drew one tender, a price only award leaves no published measure of the quality of the design offer and nothing to compare it against. The notice records the procedure as open and offers no comment on the number of tenders received.
The dates, the fund and what the record does not carry
The contract commences on 2 September 2026 and ends on 31 March 2027, a period of just under seven months. It was concluded on 31 August 2026, two days before the recorded start, and the notice was dispatched on 4 September 2026. The reference NAC/DA/5148 serves as the tender, award and contract identifier. The main classification is construction consultancy services.
The form is a contract award notice below the threshold for the national register, or a call off from a framework of any value. The procurement is recorded as covered by the Government Procurement Agreement and as unrelated to European Union funds. Options are recorded as none. The review body is Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.
What the release does not carry is the construction budget the design is being prepared against, the length or the form of the route, and any programme beyond the March 2027 end of the design period. The fund named in the description is identified as the intended route to delivery rather than as a secured allocation, and no sum is attached to it. For a contractor watching for these works to reach the market, the date that matters on this record is the end of the design commission, because the notice says nothing about construction at all.