Two to compete for Peterborough collection deal

Peterborough city council has announced the final shortlist for a contract which involves delivering its household waste and recycling collections, with two services companies set to battle it out for the long-term deal.

The council revealed yesterday (October 14) that it had cut the shortlist of bidders from three to two for the contract, which also covers street cleaning and ground maintenance and could also potentially involve additional services such as fleet management and building cleaning.

Veolia Environmental Services' bid has been dropped from the list of contenders, leaving the final two bids as Amey, a subsidiary of Spanish company Ferrioval, and Enterprise, which has its UK headquarters in Preston, Lancashire.

The two companies will now be asked to submit final bids, with the council aiming to select the successful bidder in January 2011 and bring the new contract – which is set to run for between nine and 30 years – online in March 2011.

Commenting on the procurement progress, the deputy leader of the city council, councillor Matthew Lee, said: “These are front line services that matter to every single resident of Peterborough, so it's important that we get it right. This is an excellent opportunity to find a partner that will improve standards while helping us find ways to become more efficient.

“Both companies have been very impressive to date and we look forward to working with them to finalise their proposals.”

Peterborough city council originally announced a six-bidder shortlist for the contract, which is currently run in-house by Peterborough City Services, in January 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story), before narrowing it down to four in May 2010.

However, just a week later, one of the four remaining bidders, Derbyshire-based waste management firm H W Martin, withdrew from the procurement process, citing a need to focus on other commercial commitments (see letsrecycle.com story).

Scope of services

The council has said that it will finalise the scope of the services to be included in the contract prior to the two final bidders submitting their proposals in December, but revealed that property maintenance, building cleaning, passenger transport, fleet management, travellers' site management, catering and couriers were among the additional services they had expressed an interest in delivering.

It has also stressed that, under the agreement, existing staff will continue to deliver the services, with around 600 joining the successful bidder's organisation.

The contract for collections is one of three waste management deals Peterborough city council is in the process of procuring. The council has asked the three final bidders for the contract to build and manage a new materials recycling facility – Community Waste, Greenstar and Viridor – to submit their outline proposals by November 2010.

And, it has asked the two final bidders for the contract to build and operate a new energy-from-waste facility – Kier and Viridor – to submit their outline proposals with a view to having the plant up-and-running in 2014/15.