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Tender description

The Bowring Park Managing Agent Project is a project for the design, build, finance, operation and maintenance (DBFOM) of Bowring Park located in the Liverpool City Region. Its location, recently restored heritage features and golf course provide a unique venue from which new enterprises can be delivered for community benefit, environmental protection and financial reward. Securing and balancing these 3 merits alongside the provision of the DBFOM requirements of the park over the long-term, via an appropriately appointed managing agent, are primary objectives of the project. Knowsley Council is embarking on a procurement procedure with a view to awarding a concession contract for the project to a concessionaire (‘the Managing Agent’). The duration of the contract will not exceed the time that the managing agent can reasonably be expected to recoup its investments necessary to perform the primary objectives of the project as well as to obtain a return on this investment. Bowring Park has been the focus of a major heritage restoration project that has re-vitalised the park as a primary public green space for Huyton and the wider Knowsley/Liverpool community. The Restoration Project has regenerated the Park’s historic landscape and buildings assets. Their ability to enable positive community use now needs to be harnessed through their effective future management (via the managing agent project). This remit includes the necessity for the Park’s historic municipal golf course to be managed in a good quality and commercially viable manner to complement the Park’s wider heritage features and forthcoming civic benefits. Hence, there is an integral relationship between the Park’s restored heritage assets, their much enhanced community use and sustaining a popular public golf course; each feature supporting the other to succeed. These circumstances create a unique opportunity, under appropriate management conditions, to drive forward the Council’s social and economic growth ambitions for the borough. Through the project the Council is seeking to appoint a managing agent for Bowring Park who has the range of credentials, either directly and/or through its selected agents and partners, to create these conditions. The Council wishes to appoint a managing agent who is able to fulfil the following roles: (a) apply commercial enterprise to the Park to deliver a financial and/or social return for its investors whilst also creating public value; (b) utilise and enhance the Park as an asset for profit making ventures on the basis that the Park’s community benefits are complementary to and sustained by, this activity; (c) ensure that the municipal heritage and natural habitats of the Park are safeguarded, promoted and integral to its business plan; (d) enable the co-production of ideas, engagement and resources with local citizens to reflect the municipal traditions of the Park; (e) co-ordinate the delivery of the enhanced community and environmental benefits stemming from the Park’s restoration project’s significant investment in upgrading the Park’s heritage buildings and landscape. (3 476 000 000 GBP of public sector funding during 2019/20.); (f) bring new capital investment to complete the restoration project’s infrastructure works, further enhance the Park’s heritage interest and upgrade its golf course; (g) remove the current circumstance whereby the Council is subsidising the running of the Park’s municipal golf course (by 118 000 GBP per annum) as this is not financially sustainable. (h) be able to offer the Council a financial dividend(s) for it being granted this concession agreement. The Council fully understands the necessity for arrangements to be in place to make the managing agent role commercially viable to the incumbent whilst they deliver the community benefits the Council requires from the Park. The managing agent could come from the private sector, may be a social enterprise or arise from a new consortium entity (of private and social sector parties) formed specifically to fulfil this role. The managing agent’s interest, investment and commitment to the Park would be for the long-term; with the Council anticipating this being greater than 25 years to provide the necessary time for the managing agent to make their commercial return on their involvement.