Decision details

Approved to proceed with the extension of the Specialist Fleet Services contract up to 30 November 2027.

The extension will allow to provide the Council with continuity of service in the Hambleton area for vehicles involved in refuse and recycling collection, street sweeping etc along with the maintenance of those vehicles whilst the Fleet and Waste harmonisation process takes place.

Extending up to 30 November 2027 ensures short term requirements are met, but ensures the Council is not tied into a ten-year extension for a contract which will not meet the Council’s long-term requirements after harmonisation has been applied across Fleet and Waste service areas.

The extension will co-terminate with the individual vehicle contracts at which point we will be able to purchase new vehicles (that will line up with our potentially revised requirements because of the harmonisation process) and have maintenance provide outside of the Specialist Fleet Services (SFS) contract potentially by in-house (or NY Highways) resource.

The revised cost rates negotiated for the extensions allow the council to generate significant savings over existing cost levels – as indicated in section 7.2 of the report.

It was explored to purchase new vehicles and maintain these through NY Highways instead of extending, but six of the vehicles to be replaced are split body meaning that they would be obsolete to operations before the end of the vehicle’s life. This option would potentially also leave the Dennis Eagle (maintenance) element of the SFS contract without enough work in their occupied workshop and could put the remaining vehicles at risk of downtime if the Dennis Eagle resource has been moved elsewhere.

There was exploration with internal workshops to see if there was a desire to inhabit the workshop at Darlington Road and bring purchased vehicles back in house and retain the Dennis fitters, however, the Workshop was not deemed a financially viable option, with many improvements required to the site. It should be noted that Dennis Eagle have also fitted out the workshop with appropriate kit and equipment that will be de-installed at the end of our contractual agreement with them. This investment in the facilities at Darlington Road was done based on the initial 10year contract, and there will be no financial penalty for us if we only take up a short extension period as opposed to the potential of a second 10year term that was indicated in the original contract.