This report requests that the Environment, Climate Emergency and Transport Committee approves the purchase of Parks Machinery, following a recent competitive tender exercise, from the Parks Machinery Capital included in the Council's Capital Programme.

Resolved – that the Director of Neighbourhoods be authoried, following the recent competitive tender exercise, to award the contracts to purchase the Grounds Maintenance Machinery detailed in this report from the highest scoring bidders in accordance with the Most Economically Advantageous Tenderer Criteria.

The Parks & Countryside Service use a wide variety of machinery to maintain Wirral’s parks and open spaces, play pitches, cemeteries, highway verges and beaches. The majority of existing machinery is now 10 years old or older and has reached the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced.

Provision for the purchase of Parks Machinery was made in the 2019/20 Capital Programme agreed by Council on 4 March 2019. At that time, a three-year programme of procurement was envisaged; however, due to delays in procurement as a result of first the COVID Pandemic and then staff changes, procurement activity only commenced from 2022. A total of £2,635,000 Capital has been included in the 2023/24 Capital Programme, profiled over two years.

A competitive procurement exercise has been undertaken using the TPPL (The Procurement Partnership Limited) Framework.

The results of the tender exercise, the preferred suppliers and cost for each item is provided in Appendix 1: Parks Machinery - Machinery Pricing & Scores.

In line with the Council Contract Procedural Rules, given the overall value, this procurement needs to be considered by the Environment, Climate Emergency & Transport Committee and agreement received prior to purchase.

Do Nothing -The age of this machinery, which is serviced and maintained by the Parks & Countryside Workshop, is such that breakdowns are more frequent, which leads to increased repair costs. Alongside increased repair costs the service delivered suffers, due to increased down time, leading to increased complaints from residents. The design of machinery has improved over the past 10 years with new machinery being more fuel efficient, reducing costs and emissions. Advances in material and manufacturing technology have brought about improved designs of hand-held and hand-guided machines with lower levels of vibration emission, helping to reduce injuries such as hand-arm vibration syndrome and carpel tunnel syndrome which can affect the health and wellbeing of operators. Given these factors, a ‘do nothing’ option is not believed to be viable.

Re-procurement from Capital – Purchasing new replacement machinery, based on current and proposed future methods of managing the estate, provides the benefits of reduced downtime, reduced emissions and having the right machinery for the job. New machinery would also assist in reducing operators’ exposure to vibration, although regular monitoring of operator exposure would still be required to manage the residual risk. This is the preferred option.