IN Brief:
- Nottingham City Council has issued a new construction-services procurement notice for the Bulwell Town Centre Improvements scheme.
- The package covers design, pre-construction, building works, M&E installations, external works, commissioning and handover through SCAPE.
- The wider £19.8m Bulwell regeneration programme has already been under construction since October 2025.
Nottingham City Council has issued a new procurement notice for construction services associated with its Bulwell Town Centre Improvements programme, using the SCAPE National Construction Framework as the delivery route.
The 6 October notice covers design, pre-construction and construction services, including building work, mechanical and electrical installations, external works, commissioning and final handover. The council has not disclosed a value for the individual procurement package in the notice.
The procurement sits within a wider town-centre programme backed by £19.867m from the government’s Levelling Up Fund. Construction across that programme began in October 2025, so the latest notice represents an additional procurement step within an active scheme rather than the beginning of the complete Bulwell regeneration.
Existing works and planned improvements span the Market Place, Bulwell Bogs, pedestrian areas and other town-centre assets. Nottingham’s current programme information states that the wider construction phase was expected to run for around a year from its October 2025 start.
The new SCAPE notice does not publicly divide its scope between individual locations or identify which elements remain to be delivered under the new package. Instead, it specifies delivery functions covering design development, pre-construction, building work, M&E systems, external works, commissioning and handover.
Bulwell Bogs is undergoing a broader refresh including landscape work, play facilities, an expanded splash park, refreshments provision, toilets and changing facilities. Lighting and CCTV are also included around that part of the development.
Changes to the Market Place include replacement market equipment and improved electrical power provision. Electrical distribution has to support changing stall arrangements and trader requirements while remaining suitable for an outdoor public environment where equipment is repeatedly connected, disconnected and reconfigured.
Public-realm works also include renewed paving, seating and street trees, while connections between the Market Place and Bulwell Bogs are being altered. The construction interfaces extend below ground because drainage, utilities and electrical supplies have to be coordinated with surface finishes and street furniture.
Nottingham has separately identified road reconstruction and resurfacing affecting Commercial Road, Main Street, Market Place and Station Road. Statutory restrictions are being used to protect newly completed surfaces from avoidable excavation by utility companies after substantial highway works have been carried out.
That approach reduces the risk of newly laid carriageways or paved areas being reopened soon after completion. Utility access cannot be eliminated where urgent work is required, but coordinating known interventions before final surfacing can reduce repeated reinstatement and the defects that often develop around later trenches and patches.
The SCAPE route gives public bodies access to pre-procured construction partners rather than requiring an entirely new contractor framework for each project. Individual schemes still need an agreed scope, commercial arrangement and delivery programme, but framework procurement can shorten the route to contractor engagement where the project fits the framework rules.
Bulwell’s latest notice uses that mechanism after construction on the wider programme has already started. It should therefore be read as a defined procurement within an ongoing regeneration scheme, with neither the £19.867m programme value nor the October 2025 start date attributable solely to this new package.
The programme followed Nottingham’s successful Levelling Up Fund bid and subsequent consultation with residents, businesses, community organisations and councillors. Designs for the Market Place and Bogs area were developed before main construction began, establishing the principal public-realm objectives now being implemented through successive works packages.
Occupied town-centre sites create sequencing constraints that differ from closed development plots. Paving, drainage, lighting, landscaping, electrical installations and building alterations have to progress while pedestrian routes, businesses and public facilities remain accessible around the works.
Mechanical and electrical systems also need to be coordinated with structural and external works before surfaces are closed. Ducts, foundations, drainage runs and connection points installed in the wrong sequence can force later excavation through completed paving or finished landscape areas.
Commissioning and handover therefore form a substantive part of the procurement scope. Electrical systems, lighting, public facilities and other building services have to be tested and documented before acceptance, while completed external works need inspection against specification before responsibility transfers back to the council.
The notice leaves some commercial detail unresolved publicly, including the package value and precise boundary between construction already under way and the services now being procured. What it confirms is a new SCAPE-based route covering the remaining design-to-handover functions identified by Nottingham within the live Bulwell improvements programme.
