United Utilities set to issue the sector’s first Direct Procurement tender

United Utilities has started the process towards tendering for a Competitively Appointed Provider (CAP) for its Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme – the water sector’s first Direct Procurement for Customers (DPC) scheme.

The company has issued a periodic indicative notice and alerted the market that it will be launching the procurement in June for a single CAP to design, build and fund six replacement tunnels sections of the Haweswater Aqueduct and maintain it for a period of 25 years post construction. The aqueduct carries water to Manchester and the Pennines region from the Lake District.

United Utilities has put in extensive technical, engineering, market engagement and stakeholder engagement work to get to this point, and believes the DPC route could offer customers the best value for money.

Director of strategic programmes at United Utilities, Neil Gillespie, said: “A project of this scale will always be challenging from a technical and planning perspective, but we have also had to start from scratch to develop the commercial framework for the procurement model. United Utilities has a long tradition of embracing innovation to push the status quo, driven by the ambition to improve efficiency and secure the best possible value for our customers. This is an exciting milestone on that journey and this process will provide robust insights and learning for the future use of the DPC model.”