EHC 0718 Procurement of a Developer Partner for Old River Lane Bishop's Stortford

Description

East Hertfordshire District Council ("the Council") intends to enter into a development agreement ("the Agreement") with Cityheart Limited ("Cityheart").  The Agreement will relate to a proposed development of an area of land in Bishop's Stortford, in the Council's area, by way of a town centre regeneration scheme.
The Agreement may be a public works contract or works concession within the meaning of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 or the Concession Contracts Regulations 2016.  Cityheart was selected as the preferred bidder to be the developer because it submitted the most highly evaluated tender in a procurement advertised by an OJEU notice dated 28 July 2018 and conducted using the competitive dialogue procedure ("the Procurement").
As further described below, there have been changes to the development proposal since Cityheart's final tender was submitted in January 2019.  The Council's position is that the changes are not such as to take the Agreement as now contemplated outside the scope of what was originally advertised, and accordingly that this is not a case in which the Council is required to publish a further contract notice before entering into the Agreement.