Hyde Park Super Nursery Design & Build

Tender description

The Royal Parks (TRP) is seeking a specialist supplier who can design & build a sufficient number of glasshouses in Hyde Park to deliver approximately 400,000 plants grown annually. TRP has continually strived to provide quality bedding plants to all eight of its Royal Parks for many years. TRP has been growing their own plants in the existing nurseries at Hyde Park and The Regent’s Park since the last century. The current nurseries date back to the late 1960s and are now at the end of their useful life. TRP wants to modernise its main nursery at Hyde Park (1.6 Ha) and close the other smaller nursery at The Regent’s Park. The current glasshouses will be demolished by a specialist Contractor, ahead of and in readiness for the new build, as a separate exercise to this tender. This is an exciting opportunity to update and modernise the Hyde Park Nursery and potentially broaden its use within the Royal Parks, for not only plant production but also for horticulture education and training facilities. To enable TRP to continue this tradition of horticulture excellence, we are therefore seeking experienced companies within the horticultural glasshouse industry to design and build this new Hyde Park Super Nursery, in the heart of London’s historic Royal Park, based on an output specification. The aspiration of this project is to centralise the growing of plant material for TRP in the Hyde Park Super Nursery and ensure that circa 95% delivery of TRP’s requirement is grown within the estate thereby reducing our dependence upon external suppliers. A small amount (circa 5%) will always be grown off-site due to the nature of the bedding. Additionally, we desire that the new nursery facility supports and delivers a wider range of activities and outcomes including but not limited to: • supporting our Apprenticeship Programme (supporting aspects of training); • supporting our Education Programme; • showcasing how TRP is aspiring to more sustainable operations – operational efficiencies, peat use reduction, water and energy conservation, skills development; and • community/stakeholder engagement – open days.