Official UK procurement notice
Catering for STEAM - Museum of The Great Western Railway
Authority: Swindon Borough Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionSwindon Borough Council is seeking to explore future options for the delivery of conferencing, banqueting, special events and café catering at STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway, Swindon.
The Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) questionnaire have been produced to enable Swindon Borough Council to engage with potential suppliers and to understand the market and the potential interest in this opportunity.
Any information provided will only be used for research purposes. The supporting questionnaire does not constitute an Invitation to Tender process, and will not be judged against any criteria, nor will it inform any potential tender process in the future, and no award of any contract will be made as part of this process.
CPV: Canteen and catering services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1PlannedRenewal
Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Swindon Borough Council buys Canteen and catering services (CPV 5550), and who usually turns up
Swindon 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: Canteen and catering services (CPV 5550) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
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. The market figure counts awards delivered in South West England (authority’s region).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
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 77 days of the bid deadline.
i
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?
i
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 bid15% / 20%
2–315% / 60%
4–633% / 20%
7+36% / 0%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
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 estimate54% / 46%
Within ±2%25% / 46%
Above estimate21% / 8%
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 5550Published estimate£3.6m
i
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 66 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid14%
2–330%
4–647%
7+9%
i
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.
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.
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
- 28 Aug 2026, 13:04 BST
- Last source update
- 28 Aug 2026, 13:04 BST
- Authority reference
1- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-082173- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06ee83Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
28 Aug 2026 → 1 Apr 2027 · 3 dates- Planning notice published58 days ago28 Aug 2026, 13:04 BST
- Market engagement26 days ago28 Sept 2026, 23:59 BST
Catering for STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway
Swindon Borough Council invites you to contribute to preliminary market engagement in relation to catering for STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway and would welcome the views of suppliers on the questions set out in the questionnaire. The intention is to invite supplier feedback to help shape the final specification and commercial model to ensure the tender delivers the optimum outcomes for the Council.
STEAM is considering either appointing a single catering partner or multiple operators to deliver high-quality food and beverage services to the museum’s three core business segments:
- Conferencing
- Special Events & Banqueting
- Café
The initial contract term will be for 60 months with an option to extend for a further 24 months (2 periods of 12 months) for a potential total contract term of 7 years. Estimated contract spend is £2.4m across the initial 5 year contract term and £3.6m across the potential total 7 year contract term.
Engagement Process Description
To participate in the Preliminary Market Engagement Suppliers will need to Register as a Supplier with ProContract, www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk ↗, then Register an Interest before obtaining access to the Preliminary Market Engagement documents.
Responses to the Preliminary Market Engagement Questionnaire are required to be submitted no later than 28th September 2026, 15:00 hrs UK Local time via ProContract tender portal - www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk ↗
- Today25 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 158 days1 Apr 2027, 00:00 BST
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published28 Aug 2026, 13:04 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