Tender

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)

• NORTHUMBRIAN WATER LIMITED UK4: Tender notice - Procurement Act 2023 - view information about notice types

Notice identifier: 2026/S 000-024877

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-066e3b

Published 18 March 2026, 10:36pm

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Contents

Scope Lots (2)
- Lot NW3038A. Bio Diversity Net Gain (North)
- Lot NW3038B. Bio Diversity Net Gain (South)
Framework Participation Submission Award criteria Other information Procedure Documents Contracting authority

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Reference

NW3038

Description

The environment is at the heart of everything we do as a business, so our role in protecting the environment forms part of our company's purpose.

In our regions we enjoy some of the most beautiful rivers, coasts and wildlife habitats in the country. We know how important they are for our communities and looking after them is a huge part of what motivates our people to do the essential jobs they do each day.

Our environmental ambition is: Together, we are restoring and regenerating our natural environment, creating a better place through our actions.

Ensuring we deliver biodiversity net gain (BNG) through our capital investment programme is key part of delivering our ambition. We see BNG as an opportunity to work with others to deliver gains for wildlife in our regions.

The provision of Biodiversity Units (BUs) for BNG is the purpose of this tender. We are forecasting that we will require in the order of 700 BUs to enable us to deliver the rest of our capital investment in PR24. The split of investment is approximately 70% in our Northumbrian Water (NW) operating area, and 30% in our Essex & Suffolk Water (ESW) operating area.

Our investment is across our operating areas, with the potential to occur in any of the Local Planning Authorities and National Character Areas in which we operate.

The NW operating area includes 15 Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), and 15 National Character Areas (NCAs

We follow the mitigation hierarchy when designing our capital projects, and aim to minimise negative impacts to the natural world. As such it is expected that most of our impacts will be on lower value area habitats. However, as many of our assets are already in-situ it may be that we do impact higher value area habitats when we need to connect into those assets. Due to the nature of the infrastructure that we will be building we know that we will have impacts on hedgerows, and water courses.

We require the ability to mitigate, through purchasing Biodiversity Units, the negative impacts on habitats that our projects will have.

We will aim to mitigate those impacts locally where possible but acknowledge that might not be feasible for all projects depending on their location and habitats impacted.

We welcome submissions from companies who can only deliver in one specific area or one specific habitat type, as well as from those who are able to deliver a wide range of solutions. We would also welcome submissions from groups of companies. If you are part of a group submission, please indicate who the lead organisation is.

We want to deliver our BNG in a way that brings added value to our customers, enhances the natural world in the areas in which we operate and offers flexibility in our approach

We need appropriate BNG solutions to enable delivery of our capital programme. For this we will need:

• Area habitat units

• Hedgerow units

• Water course units

• BUs available across different LPAs and NCAs within NWL's operating areas

We aim to deliver added value to our customers which can come from e.g.:

• Using Biodiversity Gain Sites that provide water quality benefits in our catchments

• Using Biodiversity Gain Sites that allow some public access

• Using Biodiversity Gain Sites that provide employment opportunities in our communities

We want flexibility to ensure we can deliver best value for our customers, and alongside the simple purchase of BUs we will consider:

• Habitat gain sites built to order

• The potential to have option agreements.

The intention to to have 2 lots (North + South) and a total of 6 vendors on each framework.

Commercial tool

Establishes a framework

Total value (estimated)

• £5,700,000 excluding VAT
• £6,840,000 including VAT Above the relevant threshold

Contract dates (estimated)

• 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2027
• Possible extension to 31 March 2030
• 3 years, 9 months Description of possible extension:

2 extensions are possible each lasting for 15 months... extensions will be based upon vendor performance and business need

Main procurement category

Services

CPV classifications

Environmental services

Lot constraints

Description of how multiple lots may be awarded:

vendors can apply to be on the framework for the North (Lot 1) or the South (Lot 2)

Not the same for all lots

Contract locations are shown in Lot sections, because they are not the same for all lots.

Lot NW3038A. Bio Diversity Net Gain (North)

Description

The provision of Biodiversity Units (BUs) for BNG is the purpose of this tender. We are forecasting that we will require up to 700 BUs to enable us to deliver the rest of our capital investment in PR24 (which runs until March 2030). The split of investment is approximately 70% in our Northumbrian Water (NW) operating area, and 30% in our Essex & Suffolk Water (ESW) operating area.

Our investment is across our operating areas, with the potential to occur in any of the Local Planning Authorities and National Character Areas in which we operate.

The NW operating area includes 15 Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), and 15 National Character Areas (NCAs) as shown in the tables below.

LPAs

Northumberland National Park Hartlepool Darlington Northumberland

North York Moors National Park Gateshead Middlesborough Cumberland

Redcar and Cleveland South Tyneside Stockton on Tees

Westmorland and Furness Sunderland North Yorkshire

Newcastle Upon Tyne County Durham North Tyneside

NCAs

Northumberland Sandstone Hills North Northumberland Coastal Plain Tyne and Wear Lowlands

Cheviot Fringe Tyne Gap and Hadrian's Wall Mid Northumberland

Cheviots South East Northumberland Coastal Plain Pennine Dales Fringe

Border Moors and Forests Durham Magnesium Limestone Plateau Tees Lowland

North Pennines North York Moors and Cleveland Hills Durham Coalfield Pennine Fringe

Lot value (estimated)

• £3,990,000 excluding VAT
• £4,788,000 including VAT Framework lot values may be shared with other lots

Contract locations

• UKC - North East (England)

Same for all lots

CPV classifications and contract dates are shown in the Scope section, because they are the same for all lots.

Lot NW3038B. Bio Diversity Net Gain (South)

Description

The provision of Biodiversity Units (BUs) for BNG is the purpose of this tender. We are forecasting that we will require up to 700 BUs to enable us to deliver the rest of our capital investment in PR24 (which runs until March 2030). The split of investment is approximately 70% in our Northumbrian Water (NW) operating area, and 30% in our Essex & Suffolk Water (ESW) operating area.

Our investment is across our operating areas, with the potential to occur in any of the Local Planning Authorities and National Character Areas in which we operate.

The ESW operating area includes 18 LPAs and 7 NCAs, detailed in the tables below.

LPAs

Great Yarmouth Maldon Rochford Epping Forest

The Broads Authority Braintree Southend on Sea Redbridge

East Suffolk Chelmsford Castle Point Barking and Dagenham

Mid Suffolk and Babergh Brentwood Thurrock

Colchester Basildon Havering

NCAs

North East Norfolk and Flegg South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands Greater Thames Estuary

The Broads South Suffolk and North Essex Claylands

Suffolk Coasts and Heaths Northern Thames Basin

Lot value (estimated)

• £1,710,000 excluding VAT
• £2,052,000 including VAT Framework lot values may be shared with other lots

Contract locations

• UKH1 - East Anglia
• UKH3 - Essex

Same for all lots

CPV classifications and contract dates are shown in the Scope section, because they are the same for all lots.

Framework

Maximum number of suppliers

Unlimited

Maximum percentage fee charged to suppliers

0%

Framework operation description

The top 6 scoring vendors will be offered a position on each framework - for note vendors must score a minimum of 60% to also be offered a position on the framework

Award method when using the framework

With competition

Contracting authorities that may use the framework

Establishing party only

Participation

Technical ability conditions of participation

Lot NW3038A. Bio Diversity Net Gain (North)

Lot NW3038B. Bio Diversity Net Gain (South)

Vendors must be able to provide the Biodiversity Units as outlined in the scope

Submission

Enquiry deadline

13 April 2026, 9:00am

Submission type

Requests to participate

Deadline for requests to participate

13 April 2026, 9:00am

Submission address and any special instructions

Applicants are asked to note that this procurement process will be conduced electronically

with all documents and communication being managed through the Northumbrian Water e-

Sourcing Spend Management portal

called 'Ariba' (https://s1.ariba.com). (https://s1.ariba.com).) Expressions of interest from

this notice must be sent to the e-mail address michael.gibson@nwl.co.uk before the

deadline date of the 13 April 2026 at 09:00hrs. Once expression of interest has

been received that contains the details below, applicants will be given access to the Ariba

portal within

48 hours from request. This portal will contain all the tender documents associated with

this procurement that are available at the time. An email link will also be provided to the

email address you provide to access the portal.

The deadline for return of the completed RFP is the 20th April 2026 at 09:00.

When sending expression of interest, applicants must provide the following information: 1)

Full company name 2) Main contact details of the

person who will be given access to the Ariba portal - Name, job title, E mail address and

telephone number.

Tenders may be submitted electronically

Yes

Languages that may be used for submission

English

Award decision date (estimated)

10 June 2026

Award criteria

| Name | Description | Type | Weighting |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Quality | There will be a set of quality questions used to assess vendors | Quality | 100% |

Other information

Conflicts assessment prepared/revised

Yes

Procedure

Procedure type

Competitive flexible procedure

Competitive flexible procedure description

liili

Documents

Associated tender documents

NW3038 - scope document.docx

Contracting authority

NORTHUMBRIAN WATER LIMITED

• Companies House: 02366703
• Public Procurement Organisation Number: PRLG-5541-VHHG Northumbria House

Pity Me

DH1 5FJ

United Kingdom

Email: michael.gibson@nwl.co.uk

Region: UKC14 - Durham CC

Organisation type: Private utility