Financial and insurance services

Tender description

This voluntary notice relates to arrangements governed by a proposed Forward Funding Agreement (‘FFA’) between the Council and Loc8 Developments (Plymouth 2) Ltd (‘Developer’) in respect of land owned by the Council at Embankment Lane, Plymouth and has been issued on that basis that such arrangements fall outside the remit of Directive 2014/24/EC for the reasons set out under section II.1.4 and Annex D1 of this notice. This voluntary ex-ante transparency notice relates to arrangements governed by a proposed Forward Funding Agreement (‘FFA’) between the Council and LOC8 Developments (Plymouth 2) Ltd (‘Developer’) in respect of a site owned by the Council at Embankment Lane, Plymouth (‘Site’). The developer has identified an opportunity for a new hotel and 3 new food retail units to be built on the site (the ‘Development’), in each case to meet the design/specification requirements (the ‘Specification’) agreed through negotiation between the Developer and the respective hotel chain and food retail chain operators. The object of the FFA is to govern the provision of finance by the Council for the development. The finance is to be provided by the Council in stages, conditional on certain development milestones being met. The FFA envisages that the developer will initially obtain planning permission for the relevant development, but does not impose any binding obligation on the developer to do so. The FFA also envisages that if satisfactory planning is achieved, the developer will be the party entering into a building contract with a third party in relation to the relevant development, but there is no binding obligation on the developer to do so, nor otherwise to procure the carrying out of the relevant works. Consequently, the developer would not be in breach of the FFA by virtue of choosing not to take steps to obtain the relevant planning permission nor, having obtained the relevant planning permission, choosing not to procure the carrying out of the relevant works. The FFA further envisages that the Council (in its capacity as owner of the site) and the developer will also enter an agreement for lease with each of the relevant hotel chain and food retail chain operators. Under each of these agreements for lease, the developer will be required to use reasonable endeavours to obtain satisfactory planning permission for the respective development and once obtained, to design and carry out the relevant development. These obligations to develop are undertaken by the developer for the benefit of the relevant hotel chain or food retail chain operator, as prospective tenant (‘Tenant’) of the relevant hotel/retail outlet and not for the benefit of the Council. Furthermore those works have not been specified by the Council (being works which instead have been specified by the relevant tenants to meet their respective requirements), nor has the Council had nor will it have (outside of its separate capacity as local planning authority) any decisive influence on the type or design of those works. For the avoidance of doubt, in accordance with the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, the Council will now be observing a ten day standstill period. The Council will not enter into the contract until the successful conclusion of the 10 day standstill period.