1053 Essex Forest Initiative: Tree Services Framework

Description

The Essex Forest Initiative (EFI) is Essex County Council’s (ECC) tree planting project and is leading the county on responsible and sustainable tree planting and establishment. Planting an average of over 100,000 trees per year with a mixture of public and private landowners, the project is keen to collaborate with the market to ensure best outcomes in terms of tree health, species choice, bio-security and successful establishment. ECC wishes to establish a multiple supplier Framework Agreement during 2025 to provide tree supply and planting and maintenance services to support the EFI tree planting projects over the next 5+ years and the Authority wishes to invite interested parties to complete a market engagement questionnaire. Lot 1: Essex County Council (the Authority) is issuing this Prior Information Notice (PIN) as a Request for Information (RFI) to engage with the market and to gather information in order to gain a better understanding of the Cell Grown Trees market. ECC wishes to establish a multiple supplier Framework Agreement during 2025 to provide tree supply and planting and maintenance services to support the EFI tree planting projects over the next 5+ years. It is anticipated that the Framework Agreement will be dived into Lots to cover Urban Tree supply, Cell Grown trees, planting and supplies, watering and ongoing maintenance services and this will be finalised following market engagement and communicated via a published Notice. ECC would like to engage with the market regarding Cell Grown Trees in particular, in order to support the development of the framework strategy and to gain a better understanding of this market. The results of the exercise will be used to help consider and define the requirements within the Framework Agreement. The Authority wishes to invite interested parties to complete the market engagement questionnaire which can be found at the link below: https://forms.office.com/e/rtZuxK8jnk The closing date for responses is 12pm (midday) on Friday 6th September 2024. Please note that this PIN is not intended as a call for competition and as such you will need to express your interest in any future tender opportunity once the contract notice is published. This PIN is intended as an awareness, communication and information gathering exercise. An expression of interest is no indication of a commitment to participate in any future tendering process nor does it infer any preferential or special status on those individuals and organisations who participate.