Tender
Earl Shilton design and build reserved for smaller UK contractors
By Staff Writer | 03-09-2026
Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council has put an eighteen unit design and build scheme at Earl Shilton out to open competition, reserved for United Kingdom suppliers and aimed at small and medium sized enterprises. The notice gives an estimated total value of 3,000,000 pounds including value added tax and no figure excluding it. It was published at 9:36am on 3 September 2026.
The council describes the requirement in a single sentence on the face of the notice:
This procurement is for a Design & Build project for 18 units consisting of 1 bed flats, 2 bed houses & 3 Bed houses at Peggs close, Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, LE9 7BP
Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, tender notice
The only published value includes value added tax. A contractor pricing this scheme has no published net figure to work back from.
The value, and why the card carries none
The estimated total value is given as 3,000,000 pounds including value added tax. No excluding figure appears anywhere on the notice. That is the reverse of the usual presentation, in which the net figure is published and the gross follows from it, and it is the reason no value appears on the card for this item. The published number is not on the same basis as the net figures published against other schemes and putting it beside them would mislead.
The procurement is recorded as below the relevant threshold and the procedure as below threshold open competition.
Who may bid, and for what
The notice records that the procurement is reserved for United Kingdom suppliers and for small and medium sized enterprises and voluntary, community and social enterprises. Particular suitability is separately recorded for small and medium sized enterprises.
Below threshold procurement allows a contracting authority to restrict participation in ways not open to it above the threshold. A reservation of this kind takes larger contractors out of the competition altogether rather than scoring them down, so the field here is settled by the notice rather than by the evaluation. A contractor that does not meet the definition has nothing to gain from reading further, and one that does has a shorter list of competitors than the value alone would suggest.
Eighteen units are named: one bedroom flats, two bedroom houses and three bedroom houses, at Peggs Close in Earl Shilton. The main procurement category is works and the place of performance is recorded as Leicestershire and Rutland. The classification does not match the description. The notice classifies the procurement as site development work, which covers the preparation of a site rather than the buildings placed on it, where a design and build for eighteen dwellings would ordinarily be classified under residential construction. Nothing on the notice explains the choice, a contractor searching by classification could miss this scheme entirely, and the description is the better guide to what is wanted.
The enquiry deadline is 8 October 2026 at midday and tenders are due by 19 October 2026 at midday. The estimated contract period runs from 4 January 2027 to 27 March 2028, recorded on the notice as one year, two months and twenty four days. Award criteria are quality at fifty per cent and price at fifty per cent, and tenders are taken through the East Midlands tendering portal. Eleven days separate the enquiry deadline from the tender deadline. On a design and build, where the contractor carries the design, that is the window in which a bidder has to resolve anything the tender documents leave open, because after 8 October it cannot ask.
What is not published
The notice publishes no planning position for the site, no design brief, no ground information and no form of contract. It gives no split between the flats and the houses beyond the three types named, no floor areas and no milestones inside the contract period. It does not say whether the units are for rent or for sale, and it names no employer's agent.