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| Stagecoach service 81 at Kirkby Lonsdale - but not for much longer. |
In our previous post on the new bus service contracts in the Lune Valley (read again here) , we made much of the "fact" that no bus operators had submitted tenders for the new contracts and that as a result, the Council had had to negotiate a deminimis agreement.
We were therefore surprised to be contacted by a local bus operator to say that they had submitted a number of tenders, both compliant to the contract specification and with alternative proposals. A second operator has also confirmed that it submitted a tender.
Our information came from Lancashire County Council's website, specifically the "Local Bus Service Tender Results" section, which at the time of writing was displaying this document
We trust readers will agree that our interpretation that "no tenders were received" was not unreasonable!
The information and detail that councils are required to publish when it comes to tenders is highly specified and, as with many legal documents, prioritises "the letter of the law" over what an interested lay person might find useful. Lancashire has accepted that what was initially published could have contributed to the misunderstanding.
It seems that in fact three tenders (i.e. tenders from three operators) were received and that within those three submissions there were a number of alternative options. However, after consideration of all the options, the bid finally accepted varied slightly from the specification of what was originally put out to tender. The original tender was therefore "not awarded", and a "deminimis subsidy partnership" was entered into with Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire instead.
The Council has now amended the information on its website to more correctly represent the outcome of the tendering excercise.
We are happy to set the record straight and apologise for our part in any confusion.
