Contract award
Devon and Somerset fire authority lets drainage works at two stations
By Staff Writer | 31-08-2026
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority has awarded drainage construction works to Mercury Construction (South West) Limited at 336,113.52 pounds excluding value added tax, or 403,336.23 pounds including it. The award notice, identifier 082143-2026, was published on the United Kingdom tender service at 12:13 on 28 August 2026. The award is dated 25 August 2026.
The authority states that it has identified a requirement to upgrade drainage at Clyst St George Fire Station, which it numbers Station 45, and at the Urban Search and Rescue facility it numbers Station 60, to improve the performance of the existing drainage system and to mitigate flood risk to neighbouring properties.
The purpose stated on the notice is not to fix a nuisance on the authority's own land. It is to stop water leaving that land and reaching somebody else's.
What is being built
The scope is described as the provision of drainage construction works, including associated new below ground drainage runs, manholes and associated reinstatement works within the existing site. The authority adds that the works are expected to comprise primarily new below ground drainage runs, manholes and associated reinstatement within the existing site. The requirement is classified against drainage works, drains construction work, and plumbing and drain laying work.
Three things follow from that description. The work is below ground, so it is exposed to whatever the ground turns out to contain. It is within an existing operational site, so it is being cut into surfaces and services that are already in use. And reinstatement is expressly part of the scope, which means the contractor is putting back what it opens up rather than leaving that to somebody else.
Working on a station that cannot close
A fire station and an urban search and rescue base are not sites that can be handed over empty. Appliances have to leave at any hour, by a route that has to stay passable, and the drainage runs being replaced will in places sit under that route. The sequencing problem is not the pipework. It is keeping an operational access clear while a trench crosses it.
That is the sort of constraint that decides how a job of this size is actually programmed. Open cut in short lengths, backfill and reinstate the same day, and move on. It is slower than a continuous run, and it is priced accordingly.
The competition and the programme
The notice records five bids, all five carried through to the final stage, and all five from small and medium sized enterprises. None came from a voluntary, community or social enterprise. That is a healthy field for a job of this value and it suggests the requirement was drawn in a way the regional civils market could price.
The contract period runs from 21 September 2026 to 22 February 2027, which is five months. The award is recorded as below threshold. The successful contractor is registered at Plymouth and is itself recorded on the notice as a small or medium sized enterprise.
The winter placing is worth noting on a drainage job whose stated purpose is flood risk. The works run through the wettest part of the year, on a site where the existing system is already the problem. Temporary drainage arrangements during construction are usually where that tension is resolved, and they are usually the contractor's responsibility.
The authority publishes no figure for the flood risk it is mitigating, no detail of the existing system's defects, and no reference to any neighbouring property or claim. It names no framework and no lot structure. The buyer is recorded at Exeter. The award and the contract are both recorded as active.