Tender

Beyond Housing tenders scaffolding framework across three coastal lots

By Staff Writer  |  21 August 2026

Beyond Housing published a tender notice on 21 August 2026 for a scaffolding framework divided into three geographical lots, with tenders due by one o'clock on 5 October 2026. The notice publishes an overall value of 4,500,000 pounds including tax, while the three lot values published on the same notice total 5,000,000 pounds.

The requirement is scaffolding design, erection, hire and dismantle across the landlord's property portfolio, for both planned and reactive works. The lots are Redcar and Cleveland, Scarborough and the surrounding areas including Filey, and Whitby and the surrounding areas. Lot one and lot two are each published at 1,750,000 pounds including tax and lot three at 1,500,000 pounds.

The competition is an open one, run below threshold under the Procurement Act 2023, and the notice records the framework as suitable both for small and medium sized enterprises and for voluntary, community and social enterprises. Quality carries 60 per cent of the available marks and cost carries 40 per cent. The work is classified under scaffolding work, scaffolding erection work and scaffolding dismantling work.

The term runs from 1 May 2027. The notice states that the award will be for an initial twelve months from commencement, renewable on mutual agreement between the landlord and the selected contractor for up to a further twenty four months in two extensions of twelve months, giving a maximum term of three years. The maximum extent date recorded on the same notice is 1 May 2029, which is two years from commencement rather than three. An earlier pipeline notice for the same requirement gave a start of 3 May 2027 and a maximum extent of 2 May 2030. The differences are recorded here and are not reconciled.

What the practitioner should take from this

The first point is the arithmetic. Three lots published at 1,750,000, 1,750,000 and 1,500,000 pounds come to 5,000,000 pounds, against an overall figure of 4,500,000 pounds on the same notice. Neither figure is described as a maximum including headroom and neither is described as a ceiling for the framework as a whole. A contractor bidding two lots needs to know whether the lot figures or the overall figure governs the call-off volume available to it, and the notice as published does not answer that.

The second point is the renewal wording. An extension expressed as renewable on mutual agreement is not an option in the client's gift, and it is not a right in the contractor's gift either. It means that at twelve months either party can decline and the framework ends. A bidder pricing mobilisation, yard capacity or fleet purchase against a three year horizon should price it against twelve months with two conversations to come, because that is what the notice describes.

The third point is the gap between the notice and the start. Tenders close on 5 October 2026 and the framework does not commence until 1 May 2027, close to seven months later. A long gap between tender return and commencement puts price risk on the tenderer, since scaffolding is labour and hire intensive and both move. Whether the tender documents carry any indexation or price review before commencement is not stated on the notice, and anyone bidding should establish it before fixing rates.

The fourth point is that the lots are geographical and the coverage is coastal and dispersed. Redcar and Cleveland, the Scarborough and Filey area and the Whitby area are separated by long road distances, and reactive scaffolding is the part of the service where travel time decides whether a rate works. Bidders who price the three lots identically on the assumption that the work is the same work will find the reactive element behaves differently in each.

The fifth point is that the notice records this as a below threshold open competition. That describes the route the landlord has chosen and the notices it will publish, and it does not describe the value of the opportunity, which the notice puts in the millions across the three lots. No award date, no rates, no call-off mechanism and no allocation method between framework members are published, and none is stated here.