Official UK procurement notice
ANDBC Preliminary Market Engagement Exercise - Appointment of an Operating Partner for a Creative Innovation Hub in Holywood, Co.Down
Authority: Ards and North Down Borough Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionArds and North Down Borough Council is currently preparing to initiate a procurement process to appoint an Operating Partner for a Creative Innovation Hub in Holywood, Co.Down.
The Holywood Innovation Hub is a project funded through investment from the Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD) and Ards and North Down Borough Council. It will focus on micro and small businesses within the digital, creative and screen industries: providing facilities and a secure environment to meet specific security, connectivity and technical needs. The proposed hub is intended to provide accommodation for the creative technology sector, specifically for start-up and smaller firms seeking to grow within the sector. It would also seek to provide accommodation for larger established 'anchor' tenants and potentially act as a short-term flexible base for FDI projects supported by NI Screen. The proposed hub is also intended to create an ecosystem within the creative technology sector: improving skills and employability across Ards and North Down and the overall Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD) region. A primary reason for market failure in this sector is stated as a lack of suitable accommodation. This project will address this situation, supporting the growth of firms in the digital creative sector beyond the initial 'work from home' phase.
The capital funding requirement for the proposal is £8,921,200 from the BRCD, with a further contribution of £1.1m from Ards and North Down Borough Council (ANDBC), further funding is required from the private sector to unlock this funding.
ANDBC intends to appoint an operator for the Innovation Hub at an early stage of project development. The operator will assume management responsibilities and associated risks as set out in the final contractual structure. The operator will be appointed prior to the procurement of the Integrated Consultancy Team (ICT) responsible for the design of the Innovation Hub, enabling operational requirements and commercial considerations to be incorporated into the design and helping to maximise the hub's long-term economic performance.
Prior to initiating the procurement, the Council is undertaking an Expression of Interest (EoI) and Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) Exercise . This EoI/PME exercise is being conducted pursuant to section 16 of the Procurement Act 2023 for the purposes of: (a) developing the Council's requirements and approach to the procurement; (b) designing conditions of participation and award criteria; (c) preparing the tender notice and associated tender documents; and (d) identifying suppliers capable of performing the proposed contract. The pre-market engagement is intended to facilitate high-level conversations to identify potential interested suppliers and capabilities to inform the Council's procurement approach. A summary of the opportunity is detailed in the brochure and questionnaire documents that can be accessed via the CfT documents area (Resource ID 6717503) on the eTendersNI platform (etendersni.gov.uk ↗).
CPV: Information technology services · Motion picture and video production services · Services in connection with motion-picture and video-tape production · Television production services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Ards and North Down Borough Council buys Motion picture and video tape production and related services (CPV 9211), and who usually turns up
Ards and North Down Borough Council’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Motion picture and video tape production and related services (CPV 9211) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
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How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered in the region where that award was delivered.
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How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 84 days of the bid deadline.
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How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
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How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid36% / 0%
2–337% / 29%
4–620% / 0%
7+7% / 71%
How did awards compare with estimates?
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Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate50% / 67%
Within ±2%37% / 17%
Above estimate13% / 17%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 7222Estimate not published
This lot is listed as CPV 7222. The table above uses the notice category.
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How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 55 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid27%
2–338%
4–622%
7+13%
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Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
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Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 7 Sept 2026, 12:11 BST
- Last source update
- 7 Sept 2026, 12:11 BST
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-084340- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06f35cFind a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
7 Sept 2026 → 1 Sept 2027 · 3 dates- Planning notice published49 days ago7 Sept 2026, 12:11 BST
- Market engagement38 days ago18 Sept 2026, 23:59 BST
The Council may invite interested suppliers to a virtual information session with Council officers to discuss the forthcoming opportunity and is asking interested suppliers to complete an expression of interest and questionnaire. The Council's intention is to commence a competitive tender process under the Procurement Act 2023 through eTendersNI. Interested suppliers will not be advantaged or prejudiced by participation or non-participation in the pre-market engagement. Participation or non-participation in this PME exercise will not prevent any supplier from participating in any future procurement process. For the avoidance of doubt, this is the scoping phase of the project and is not part of a formal procurement process. In accordance with section 82 of the Procurement Act 2023, the Council will take all reasonable steps to ensure that no conflict of interest puts any supplier at an unfair advantage or disadvantage in relation to this procurement. To ensure a level playing field for all parties and without breaching commercial confidentiality, all relevant information shared or gathered during this engagement will be made available to all potential suppliers as part of the forthcoming competitive tender process. This market engagement process does not commit the Council to any course of action and is not a formal part of the tender process that will follow. Suppliers who wish to participate in the market engagement exercise should complete the Expression of Interest form and PME questionnaire which can be downloaded from the CfT documents area of Resource ID 6717503 on eTendersNI (etendersni.gov.uk ↗). The expression of interest and questionnaire must be completed and returned via the CfT's Messaging area on eTendersNI in accordance with the instructions detailed in the PME Questionnaire document or by emailing [email protected]. There are no formal tender documents to be completed other than the expression of interest and questionnaire. **Please Note: All completed questionnaires must be submitted via the CfT's (Resource ID 6717503) messaging area on eTendersNI (etendersni.gov.uk ↗) or by emailing [email protected] **.
- Today26 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 309 days1 Sept 2027, 00:00 BST
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published7 Sept 2026, 12:11 BSTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender