The Packing, Transporting, Storage and Return of the Hull Maritime Museum Collection

Hull City Council (The Authority) invites qualified and interested suppliers to tender for the packing, transporting, storage and return of the Hull Maritime Museum Collection. The authority is conducting the procurement using an Open EU procedure, as required by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/102) (PCR 2015). The service is anticipated to commence in March 2021 with a duration of 4 years. This project forms part of the Hull: Yorkshires Maritime City Project. The Hull Maritime Project is a GBP 30 million development of four sites and two historic ships, which will celebrate Hull’s maritime heritage. The project is jointly funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Hull City Council and will see the complete physical refurbishment of the Hull Maritime Museum (HMM) followed by a complete redisplay of the cities maritime Collection. Other elements of the project are: • the refurbishment of Dock Office Chambers (DOC), which will provide storage for the reserve Collection; • the development of the North End Shipyard, construction of a purpose-built visitor orientation building and the permanent dry docking of the Arctic Corsair, the last deep-water sidewinder trawler; • the refurbishment of the Spurn Light Vessel; • a GBP 2 million community, education and outreach programme. The refurbishment of the Maritime Museum will require the removal of the Museum’s display and reserve Collections. The collection of circa 50 000 objects range from the international significant collection of scrimshaw, to large industrial objects. The specific purpose of this tender exercise is to appoint a supplier to provide the key service for the project of packing, transportation, storage and return of the HMM Collections. • The successful Supplier will finalise the packing and storage criteria and methods of work with the Museum’s Curatorial Team (MCT) before packing and removing the collections to the supplier’s storage facility for the period of the works. The reserve collection (currently located in the basement and second floor of the HMM). • The reserve collection which will be stored until the completion of the refurbishment works to the DOC building and will then be transported from the supplier’s storage facility to the DOC building. • The supplier shall return the reserve collection in single batch to the DOC building during January 2022. The display collection (currently located on the ground and first floor of the Maritime Museum). • The display collection shall be stored until the construction/ refurbishment works together with the exhibition fit-out are completed and will be transported from the supplier’s storage facility to the HMM. • The supplier will return the majority of the display collection to the HMM in up to six batches taking place between January and March 2024.In addition to the above, a limited number of display objects will be returned to the HMM in June 2023 prior to the commencement of the exhibition fit-out works. It should be noted that separate contracts have been awarded for the removal of 8 natural whale skeletons in the museum and 12 paintings, these objects therefore do not make up part of this contract.