The LPF has raised significant concerns about the recent cancellation of a tender for multidisciplinary design services which was being run by Haringey Council. Having begun a procurement process at the beginning of 2023, participating practices only recently learned that the tender has been scrapped without an appointment being made.
While the LPF understands the finance and resourcing pressures that local authorities are under, the late cancellation of this tender—and the fact that it called for the appointment of an entire design team under a single lead consultant—the cost to practices simply to participate in the tender process was considerable. The LPF members alone have estimated a loss of over £100,000; a figure which is likely to be far higher when the remainder of the DPS framework is taken into account.
The issue of large multidisciplinary design teams being required under a single appointment as a condition of public tendering was raised recently in an article in the Architects’ Journal, and we are making our letter to Haringey public in the spirit of transparency and to raise wider awareness of this issue. Not only is the financial burden significant, but it limits access to public projects for smaller, local and diverse firms—often the very businesses that public bodies wish to promote.
Our full letter is available below.
One thought on “Cancellation of Bruce Grove Tender: a letter to the London Borough of Haringey”