Provision of catering, hospitality, event management and support services to the Uckfield Civic Centre

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering, hospitality and event management and support services at Uckfield Civic Centre.

The Civic Centre currently houses the Town Council Offices, but also has different sized rooms that are available for hire with or without hospitality provided by the in-house catering service. In addition to the Civic Centre meeting rooms, the Council owns Foresters Hall, which is a 5 minute drive away. Currently, this hall is hired out for voluntary youth groups and commercial exercise classes among other things.

Fundamental to this procurement is the operation of a 70 seat public restaurant, which is open between 10:00-15:00, Monday to Saturday. It is also used as a licensed bar for evening functions.

Uckfield Town Council is looking for a suitably experienced and qualified operator to manage the public restaurant, events, hospitality, room bookings and support services at the Civic Centre. The Civic Centre is a valuable local resource, which has scope to grow from the development of the current public restaurant and commercial events.

In return for a 5 year contract with the option to extend for a further 2 years, the successful company will be expected to successfully TUPE current staff and be responsible for the general management of the catering and event booking procedure.

Additional information: Interest in the pre-qualification process should be expressed via email only to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk, clearly stating within this email which contract / notice you are referring to. Please also provide, as a minimum, a contact name, full company postal address and telephone number.

The pre-qualification questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/uckfield_civic_centre

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 1.9.2015 (12:00). Tenderers are required to ensure that documents are obtained and returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk, by the above closing date and time.

Documents in respect of economic / financial standing (where indicated in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire) shall be returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk, by the above closing date and time.

It will be the Tenderer's responsibility to obtain any necessary documents in order to submit a response by the closing date and time.

The contracting authority reserves the right not to award any or part of the contract which is the subject of this OJEU notice and reserves the right to terminate the procurement process at any time.

The contracting authority will not be liable for any costs incurred by those expressing an interest in tendering for this contract opportunity.

The contracting authority will consider variant bids, evaluating them (so far as the variant or the evaluation of the variant is in the opinion of the contracting authority practicable) on the same basis as a conforming bid, but shall not be obliged to accept any such bid in preference to a conforming bid even if the variant bid scores more highly. No variant will be considered unless the bidder simultaneously submits a conforming bid.