SWS contracts up for grabs before year-end

Joint venture company Scottish Water Solutions (SWS) expects to have nearly half of its work with Scottish Water out to tender by the end of this year. The development is a result of SWS being tasked to deliver £450M of capital investment as part of Scottish Water's £2.5B 2010 to 2015 programme.


SWS chief operating officer Nigel Earnshaw is due to meet contractors to tell them when tenders are coming out and what packages of work they can bid for. He commented: “The market place is very hungry and we are working as fast as we can to get these tenders out, building on all the design work we have been doing as preferred bidder under an early start agreement.

“One package has already been awarded and several are going to be going out in the next few weeks for people to price up. There is still hard work to be done to make sure we get these projects out.”

An Early Start agreement was entered into last August, enabling the partners to start work on projects, and helped Scottish Water mitigate the historic dip in investment associated with the start of large-scale delivery programmes.

Lorna McGregor, head of commercial capital projects at Scottish Watr, describes the move as a “win-win” for contractors and Scottish Water. “There’s a benefit for contractors and at the same time a benefit for us delivering to our customers because we will be in a better position to hit the regulatory milestones early or on time.

“It allowed us to hit the ground running in terms of getting the work out to sites and that helps contractors in terms of the peaks and troughs; it helps smooth their work profile, as well as allowing us to also better manage our investment profile.”

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