Southern Water has begun the pre-qualification procedure to appoint its Delivery Partners for its upcoming £1.1 billion AMP6 capital works programme.

The work will be divided into two separate lots as follows:

 Lot 1: Non-Infrastructure programme (Design & Build);

Covering works to Southern Water's water and wastewater assets, including;

• Water extraction and treatment works
• Water storage facilities
• Wastewater and sludge storage tanks
• Wastewater and sludge treatment works
• Transfer pumping stations
• Pumping stations
• Small package plant
• Planned replacement equipment programmes

 Lot 2: Infrastructure (Design & Build);

• Covering works to Southern Water's water assets, including;
• Water supply and distribution pipework, service pipes, valves, meters, chambers
• Wastewater sewer pipework, sewer rehabilitation, valves, penstocks, manholes
• Mechanical and electrical plant and equipment
• Instrumentation, control and automation equipment

Southern Water will separately tender the Lots separately but the utility is reserving the right to combine Lots, if necessary and is also reserving the right to appoint one or more Delivery Partners under each Lot, which may include separation between geographical regions within the Southern Water operational area. As part of the agreement Southern Water may include an option to extend the agreement by up to a further 5 years beyond the AMP6 period.

Companies interested in  Lot 1 must be able to demonstrate a minimum annual turnover of £165m from their financial accounts for the past 3 consecutive years, while those interested in Lot 2 must be able to show a turnover of £120m. Deadline for expressions of interest is 14^th October.

In the run-up to AMP6, Southern Water is also separately seeking to appoint Strategic Solutions Partners under one or more framework agreements. Core capabilities to be provided under consultancy services will include engineering to support the development of build and none-build projects during the Definition, Feasibility, Preferred Option Identification and Outline Design stages of the Project Lifecycle. The SSPs may support all programmes of work including Water Infrastructure, Water Non-infrastructure, Wastewater Infrastructure and Wastewater Non-infrastructure.

Key engineering disciplines required will include civil, network modelling, mechanical, electrical, CAD, ICA and process. To support the development of the projects from definition up to and including outline design, the SSP is likely to be required to demonstrate capabilities in a range of areas:

• Planning and Land Matters
• Environmental Management, including Environmental Impact Assessments
• Geotechnical Management
• Stakeholder and Customer Engagement
• Programme Management
• Project Management
• CDM
• Cost Estimation
• Early Contractor Involvement
• Post Handover Engagement with Southern Water's Delivery Partners

Finally, Southern Water has also issued a Prior Information Notice to appoint React and Maintain Service Delivery Partners to work on the installation, maintenance, repair, renewal and improvement for a number of assets, including:

• water storage, supply and distribution including networks and pumping stations;
• wastewater storage, supply collection and transportation systems including networks and pumping stations;
• civil, mechanical, and electrical (including instrumentation, control and automation) works to plant and equipment.

However, the number of lots and details regarding the scope of this contract is currently not available.

Deadline for expressions of interest for all three is 14th October - urther information on the contracts is available from Southern Water's Commercial Team. 

If you want to find out who’s got the contracts, what they’re worth, what’s in the pipeline and hundreds of key named contacts in the UK water sector, order your copy of our flagship report Complete AMP5 Contracts and Tier 1 Contractors Report July 2013 here