The Ministry of Defence is looking for a contractor to provide a maritime interdiction operations training facility at Royal Marines Bickleigh, with an option to buy a second one for the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone, according to a tender notice published on Friday afternoon.
Maritime interdiction covers the boarding and searching of vessels at sea, work that runs from counter-narcotics and sanctions enforcement through to stopping a ship suspected of carrying weapons or people. It is physically demanding and unforgiving of poor technique, since teams have to get up the side of a moving hull and through a vessel they do not know, which is why the training for it depends on purpose-built structures ashore.
The notice gives the estimated total value as just over £1.2 million excluding VAT, structured so that the contract starts at a little over £600,000 with an option to double it if the second facility is taken up. Delivery would run from 25 November this year to the end of March 2029.
Navy Commercial at Navy Command Headquarters on Whale Island in Portsmouth is running the competition under the open procedure, which means any supplier may bid. The enquiry deadline falls on 15 October and tenders are due by 10am on 27 October, with an award decision estimated for 10 November. Bidders are being offered a site visit before they submit, and the requirement has been marked as particularly suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
No preliminary market engagement notice was issued before the competition opened. The department has explained that decision by reference to the timescales involved and its belief that it already knows the market well enough from previous, similar requirements.
The requirement has been classified under wall and rope climbing equipment, training aids and devices, training facilities building, towers, and training and simulation in warships. It is listed as goods rather than works or services, and the cyber risk profile has been assessed at level one, the lowest tier under the department’s Cyber Security Model.
The department has also reserved the possibility of a future direct award of similar goods or services under paragraph 8 of Schedule 5 to the Procurement Act 2023, the provision covering repeat purchases following an original competed contract. Winning this competition could therefore carry more than the value shown on the notice.
Bickleigh, on the edge of Dartmoor near Plymouth, is home to 42 Commando, the unit that carries the Royal Navy’s maritime boarding role. The Commando Training Centre at Lympstone, further east on the Exe estuary, is where recruits and officers are trained, so a second facility there would put the same equipment in front of marines earlier in their careers.
Can’t they just board a lot of Russian ships and get on the job training?