Reading Borough Council

Value of contract: £250k – £500k

Closing date: 01 March 2021

Reading Borough Council wishes to encourage outdoor advertising contractors to work with them where opportunities exist to develop innovative advertising displays around the Borough. This will cover all formats including digital; billboards, banners, bridges, six sheet and special displays.
The displays can be static, changing or scrolling and the structure may be located within a Council building or on the road side, subject to the contractor obtaining the required statutory consents.
The Council has the exclusive ability to licence the development of advertising infrastructure ‘billboards’ on Council land and has the authority to offer organisations the rights to develop advertising structures on new sites. The Council has traditionally managed the awarding of licensing agreements on an ad-hoc/reactive basis.
It is now the Council’s intention to manage the process through a dynamic purchasing concession list. The purpose of the concession list is to provide a mechanism for the Council to select and approve suitably qualified contractors to be party to a formal concession agreement (the Concession Agreement), which will govern the allocation of licenses to permit the development of individual outdoor sites. The Concession Agreement will be for a maximum period of 4 years, consisting of an initial period of 2 years, followed by 2 annual reviews to enable the Council to monitor performance and value. New applications to the system which meet the minimum criteria for acceptance onto the supplier list can be added at any point over the lifetime of the agreement. The Concession List or Agreement does not guarantee any advertising work.
The Concession Agreement will not replace any existing contracts that Reading Borough Council may already have. The Concession Agreement does not outline the length of tenure or conditions for individual sites, this is determined within individual site license agreements.
Expressions of interest are invited from outdoor advertising contractors who are members of the Outdoor Media Centre/Outsmart (OMC) or equivalent and who comply with the OMC’s Charter – “Standard of Best Practice‟. Applicants must be developers of sites rather than agents. The role of agent is currently fulfilled by the Council.
Where the Council has identified opportunities for new outdoor displays or other initiatives, the companies registered on the list under the relevant advertising format will be approached and offered the opportunity to bid for the works.
The Concession List of developers will be managed by the Council’s Business Development Team on behalf of the Council and they will be responsible for the day to day administration of the concession.
A periodic review of contractors’ party to the Concession List will be undertaken to verify that all qualifying criteria remain valid. Contractors will be required, as part of the Agreement, to provide updated organisational information when requested by the Council.

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