Tender
National Grid seeks cable contractor for Isles of Scilly
By Staff Writer | 24 August 2026
National Grid has gone to tender for a single supplier framework covering excavation, cable laying and reinstatement on the Isles of Scilly. The estimated total value is recorded as 1,800,000 pounds including value added tax, and no figure excluding value added tax is published. The notice was published on 21 August 2026 under the identifier 2026/S 000-079979 and carries the reference WS5776878213.
The stated aim is to obtain contractor services for excavation, cable lay and reinstatement on the Isles of Scilly, consisting of planned and reactive work. The notice records that the buyer is looking to provide continuity and coverage on the isles for six and a half years, which it says will cover ED3. The commercial tool establishes a framework, the main procurement category is works, and the classification is installation of cable laying. The contract location is recorded as Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
The framework operation description sets out the primary task: to carry out excavation, reinstatement and cable laying works at low voltage, 11 kilovolts and 33 kilovolts as instructed by the distribution business within its South West Isle of Scilly region, calculated by reference to the schedule of rates. Works will be issued on both a reactive and a planned basis. The maximum number of suppliers is one and the maximum percentage fee charged to suppliers is zero.
Estimated contract dates run from 1 March 2027 to 31 August 2033, with a possible extension to 31 August 2038 described on the notice as two and a half plus two and a half. The enquiry deadline is 11 September 2026 at 5:00pm and the tender submission deadline is 25 September 2026 at 5:00pm. Award criteria are published as technical quality at 60 per cent and commercial cost at 40 per cent. The procedure is below threshold open competition and the notice records that the special utilities rules apply.
How to get into the competition
The submission route is not the usual one and a contractor that misreads it will miss the tender. The notice states that tenders may not be submitted electronically through the tender service, and that responses are to be submitted through the buyer's own sourcing platform. Suppliers wishing to participate are told to complete an expression of interest and onboarding form, attached to the notice, and return it by email to the named buyer contact. Tender documents are then issued through that platform only to suppliers who have expressed interest in response to the notice. The two week gap between the enquiry deadline on 11 September 2026 and the submission deadline on 25 September 2026 is therefore the only period in which a supplier holds the documents and can still ask about them.
What the practitioner should take from this
A single supplier framework on an island group is a different commercial proposition from a mainland call off arrangement. The notice puts the reason on the page: continuity and coverage. One contractor is expected to hold the capability on the isles for the whole period, and the reactive element means that capability has to be available rather than mobilised from Cornwall when a fault occurs. What that costs, in standing resource, plant left on the islands and travel, is the bidder's judgement, and the schedule of rates is the only pricing mechanism the notice mentions.
The term is the second point. A base period of six and a half years to 31 August 2033, with two further extensions of two and a half years each taking the outside date to 31 August 2038, is an eleven and a half year exposure on a schedule of rates. The notice does not say whether the rates are indexed, and nothing here supplies an answer. On a term of that length the indexation mechanism, wherever it sits in the documents, is worth more than the headline rates.
Third, the published value is inclusive of value added tax and the notice gives no exclusive figure. That is the reverse of the usual presentation and it matters when comparing this framework against others. A reader who treats 1,800,000 pounds as a net figure has overstated the framework by a fifth. No net figure has been derived here, because deriving one would be an estimate rather than a published fact.
The notice does not publish the length of cable involved, the number of planned schemes, the split between planned and reactive work, the indexation basis, or whether the incumbent is being re-tendered. None of those has been supplied here.