Let’s Chat: Connecting People across the West Midlands

As part of the Government’s Strategy to Tackle Loneliness, it offered opportunities for Local Authorities and charitable bodies to seek funding for one-year pilot transport initiatives to tackle issues of loneliness in their areas. Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), part of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), submitted proposals for a ‘Let’s Chat’ project, working with community transport operators to provide specific services across the West Midlands. TfWM’s proposal was shortlisted and subsequently approved and this provides the funding to deliver a pilot project.

‘Let’s Chat’ uses transport as a central focus and consists of going close to where people are and offering the opportunity for social contact, a chat and a coffee, please see the Specification document for further details.

The WMCA is seeking applications from suitably qualified voluntary or charitable organisations who may ‘bid’ for a grant to provide one or more of three Lots. Applications for each Lot will be assessed independently and awarded on their own merits and the WMCA may appoint either 1, 2 or 3 applicants in total to deliver all three Lots.

Lot 1 - Coventry, mid-Birmingham and Black Country areas

Lot 2 - Walsall area

Lot 3 - South Birmingham area

The contract for this grant will be on the draft Grant Funding Agreement, a copy of which is provided, and applications are being assessed on the evaluation criteria outlined in the Commercial Envelope of BravoSolution. Only those organisations that have responded satisfactorily to the questions in the Qualification Envelope of BravoSolution will go on to have their applications assessed.

The closing date for submissions is 1700 on 05/08/22 and if you have any clarification questions please submit these by 1700 on 29/07/22

In order to access the documents and submit your application please do so through BravoSolution, the WMCA's e-tendering portal (wmca.bravosolution.co.uk ↗). The reference is itt_1133 and if you are not already registered on BravoSolution it is free and usually only takes a few minutes to do so.