IN Brief:
- The planned framework carries an estimated value of £750m excluding VAT and is expected to begin in April 2027.
- Codi, ateb, Tai Hedyn, and United Welsh will be permitted to place construction call-offs through the agreement.
- Final tender documents will determine the lot structure, contractor requirements, and distribution of work across the Welsh housing pipeline.
Codi Group is preparing a £750m construction framework that would give four Welsh housing organisations a shared route for appointing principal contractors across new-build, specialist residential, refurbishment, and completion work.
The planned procurement was published on 7 September and is explicitly a planned procurement notice rather than the final tender. Codi says the framework will be divided into several lots, with full details due in the tender documents, while ateb Group, Tai Hedyn, and United Welsh Housing Association will be permitted to place call-off contracts alongside Codi and its subsidiaries.
The framework carries an estimated value of £750m excluding VAT and is intended to run from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2030, with provision for a one-year extension to March 2031. The procurement is being prepared as an open procedure and is marked as suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The scope is deliberately broad. Procurement classifications cover construction of houses, sheltered housing, multi-dwelling buildings, subsidised residential accommodation, residential homes, children’s homes, refurbishment of run-down buildings, and building-completion work. That range would allow participating landlords to use one framework for both development and existing-stock programmes rather than restricting it to conventional new-build housing.
The planned notice states that there will be no fixed maximum number of suppliers on the framework. Call-offs may be made either with or without further competition, giving the contracting authorities flexibility to structure individual awards once the contractor pool is established.
The tender notice is expected on 14 September, with enquiries closing on 13 November and submissions due by 20 November. An award decision is currently scheduled for 1 February 2027, leaving roughly two months before the framework’s planned start date.
The £750m figure represents estimated framework capacity, not guaranteed contractor turnover. Actual workload will depend on the schemes brought forward by the participating housing organisations, the value and timing of individual call-offs, and the way the eventual lot structure allocates work between contractors.
For the supply chain, the most important detail still missing is the final lot design. Geographic divisions, value bands, technical requirements, and the number of contractors appointed to each lot will determine whether smaller regional builders can compete directly for work or whether the larger packages favour companies with broader delivery capacity.
The planned SME suitability is therefore significant only when read alongside those tender details. A framework can be formally open to smaller businesses while still concentrating practical opportunity in larger lots, particularly where financial thresholds, bonding requirements, insurance limits, or simultaneous delivery expectations are demanding.
Housing associations increasingly use frameworks to shorten procurement lead times and establish common standards across repeated programmes. The approach can reduce the administrative burden of running a new full-market competition for every scheme, but it places greater emphasis on the initial evaluation because price, quality, social value, programme capability, and risk controls have to support several years of call-off work.
The broad procurement scope also points to more than volume housebuilding. Specialist residential accommodation, refurbishment, and completion work bring different project risks, from occupied-site logistics and resident liaison to fire safety, accessibility, sequencing, and work around existing services.
Those distinctions become more pronounced when a framework covers several landlords rather than a single development pipeline. Standard procurement terms can improve consistency, but contractors still have to respond to different sites, local authority requirements, tenure mixes, design teams, funding conditions, and resident needs.
Codi’s planned procurement also gives participating organisations the option of using competition selectively at call-off stage. Direct awards can shorten the route to site where the framework terms provide a clear basis for appointment, while mini-competitions can be used where project-specific price, programme, or technical proposals need to be tested among eligible contractors.
The eventual balance between those routes will influence both tender strategy and workload visibility. Contractors may value a place on the framework, but the commercial return will depend on how frequently projects are called off, how much competition remains after appointment, and whether individual lots generate a steady pipeline rather than occasional large packages.
Publication of the full tender documents should answer those questions. Until then, the 7 September notice establishes the scale, participating organisations, broad work categories, timetable, and procurement structure, while leaving the decisive competitive detail — the lot architecture — for the formal tender stage.
