Local authority services firm Amey is expected to be named preferred bidder for a major Surrey Waste Partnership collection contract valued at over £100 million, letsrecycle.com can reveal.
The deal, due to be confirmed imminently, would see the company collect and process waste and recyclables on behalf of Elmbridge, Mole Valley, Surrey Heath and Woking councils.
Four councils are involved in the joint contract – Surrey Heath, Woking, Elmbridge and Mole Valley.
In servicing the waste requirements of the four councils, Amey would treat over a third of the county’s waste for a period of 10 years – with an option to extend the contract lifetime to 24 years.
Amey is a services subsidiary of Spain’s Ferrovial business which is listed on the Madrid stock exchange.
Partnership
Tendered by the Surrey Waste Partnership, the arrangement has been set up as a framework allowing all 11 district and borough councils in the county to join the contract at a later stage, as well as the county council.
The framework aims to introduce consistency across local authorities in Surrey, with the joint procurement estimated to achieve combined savings of up to £2 million per year. The joint-working will also produce data to boost collection efficiency and tailor communication campaigns to residents.
The contract covers major towns and conurbations including (clockwise from top-left) Esher, Woking, Dorking and Walton-on-Thames
Under the arrangement, Amey would carry out alternate weekly collections of residual waste and commingled dry recycling, in addition to weekly food waste collections.
The earliest authority to work under the contract will be Elmbridge in June 2017, with Woking expected to follow in September. Surrey Heath is due to join in February 2018, with Mole Valley the last to roll out the contract in August 2018.
Amey
Having been shortlisted for the contract in summer 2015, Amey has vied with other major waste businesses for the procurement including Suez and Serco.
Both rival firms already have a presence in the county, with Serco recently awarded a five-year extension of its landscape services contract with Woking council, and Suez developing a combined gasification and anaerobic digestion plant in Shepperton under a PFI deal with the county council (see letsrecycle.com story).
The tender process was scored on a range of factors and that while the preferred bid did not represent the best evaluation price on the scoring it did score highest on normalised quality. Points were also given for legal and risk and the robustness of the bidders’ financial models.
The contractor will also require depots from which to operate – with each of the four partner authorities offering its existing depot at a nominal rent of £1. Collection vehicles will be owned by the individual councils but leased back to the contractor as the authorities can finance these more effectively.
Mobilisation of the contract is expected to take ‘six months’ and will include purchase and reception of necessary vehicles, transfer of staff from the existing contractor to Amey, route design, communications to residents and collection crew training.
Woking borough council is expected to save £107,000 per year via the new contract
Notably, Woking council is expected to save only £107,073 per year via the new contract, less than that already achieved through its existing contract with Biffa. But according to the council it has been known since 2013 that “there would be limited savings”, since the authority’s existing contract represented “such good value compared to the other partners”.
An Inter-Authority Agreement for the contract includes a provision that all four Surrey councils should make a saving of £100,000 and/or 5% of the existing service cost, should the final contract price be higher than their existing arrangements.
When contacted by letsreycle.com, both Amey and the Surrey Waste Partnership declined to comment on the framework procurement.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
