The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government has just confirmed that Comhar has been selected as preferred tenderer for the Social Housing PPP Programme Bundle 1 project.

The consortium is comprised of Macquarie Corporate Holdings PTY ltd as equity provider, Sisk as Construction Contractor, Choice Housing as Facility Managers and Oaklee Housing (AHB) as tenancy management service provider.

The project is the first bundle of the Social Housing PPP Programme, which is proposed to deliver 1,500 additional Social Housing Units, through an availability-based PPP model. This bundle comprises 534 social housing homes across six sites in the greater Dublin region. Two of the sites are located in the Dublin City Council (DCC) area, with DCC also acting as the lead local authority for the project. There is one site in each of the County Council areas of South Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, and Louth.

The tender process for the programme is being managed by the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) on behalf of the Department. The tender process associated with Bundle 1 formally commenced on 12 May 2017 with the publication of a contract notice. Following a pre-qualification process, three consortia were shortlisted and invited to tender. The three tenderers submitted compliant bids on 5 July 2018 and, following the completion of the tender evaluation process, the most economically advantageous tender was identified. In line with standard PPP procurement procedures, this tender was then examined against the pre-approved Public Sector Benchmark, in order to confirm that it offers a Value for Money solution for the Exchequer.

The Department, in conjunction with the procurement team from the NDFA, will work with the preferred tenderer towards the formal award and signing of the contract, which is anticipated to be in December 2018 or early January 2019. Award of the contract will be subject to the satisfactory completion of this process over the coming months. Construction of the 534 houses and apartment in counties Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Louth will commence immediately following the award of the contract, with construction expected to take between 12-24 months depending on the site.