"Big name" sought for three-year, 12,000 home programme
The project director of Leeds City Region’s £100m Green Deal programme – the largest local authority Green Deal contract to be tendered to date – is expecting over 20 bids from Green Deal Providers when the OJEU advert is published in two weeks.
Leeds City Region (LCR), which pulls together 10 district authorities plus Yorkshire County Council, is seeking a delivery partner to upgrade at least 12,000 properties, as well as boost local SMEs in the supply chain and generate new jobs and training opportunities.
Project director Colin Blackburn told CM he expects up to half of the 55 registered Green Deal Providers “to be interested in partnering up with us”. Eligible companies include energy providers British Gas, Npower and SSE as well as industry players such as Carillion, Willmott Dixon, Keepmoat and Gentoo.
Blackburn said:“We bring the knowledge of the market, marketing and a brand that people trust, and providing hot-leads to the private sector. A big cost to the private sector is being able to get through the door, but we’re confident that a high proportion of the initial contacts will go through into a Green Deal plan. The private sector will deliver its knowledge, experience and the creation of jobs." LCR research suggests that the programme will support the creation of more than 300 jobs.
At least 12,000 properties are targeted for Green Deal upgrades. Photo: Leeds City Region Partnership/Jerry Hardman-Jones
LCR has identified up to 420,000 properties in its region that it believes are suitable for Green Deal intervention out of a total stock of 1.25 million. The bulk are in the private sector, as most of LCR’s social housing stock was thermally upgraded with Decent Homes funding.
But the aim is to upgrade just 12,000 in the first three years. Blackburn said: “We felt that was the minimum if we were going to attract one of the big companies, and we need big companies because of the long-term liabilities involved.”
The programme is valued at £80m-£100m, calculated as the average spend per household plus ECO subsidy for hard-to-treat properties. “But it’s not just about the £100m, it’s about the wider economic value this will have in supporting SMEs and sole traders in the low carbon supply chain.”
Procurement will be via a competitive dialogue process, with LCR expecting to appoint the winning bidder by April 2014. The initial contract will run for three years, with an option to extend it for another five.
Blackburn said that a feature of the programme would be “standard pricing across the region”, so that loft insulation for a terraced house in York would cost the same as for a rural property. The private sector provider will also be expected to run a call centre for customers.
Prospective bidders and supply chain members are also being invited to an information day in Bradford on 24 May.
