Survey Work for the National Forest Inventory for Great Britain

This notice is solely intended to raise awareness of an upcoming opportunity in relation to surveying work for the National Forest Inventory for Great Britain. You are not invited to respond to this notice.

The National Forest Inventory (NFI) programme monitors woodland and trees within Great Britain. It is a 5-year cycle, rolling programme involving in-depth surveys designed to provide accurate information about the size, distribution, composition and condition of Great Britain's forests and woodlands, and also about the changes taking place through time. It is essential for developing and monitoring the policies and guidance that support the sustainable management of forest and woodland.

Forest Research manages the NFI programme and later this year will be commencing the procurement of the surveying contract covering, in the main, the 3rd 5-year cycle of field data collection. Under this contract the intention is to re-survey at least 10,000 1st & 2nd cycle 1-hectare sample squares, but there will also be a volume of new sample squares to be assessed and possible ad hoc survey work (e.g. in response to storm damage or disease).

The contract will be competitively tendered as a multi-Lot, multi-supplier framework with a total value estimated to be in the range £2m - £2.5m. Whilst the framework will cover the whole of GB, as it will be broken down into multiple geographical-based Lots, it will offer potential opportunities for work for the full range of experienced surveyors and forestry specialists, small and large, from sole traders to multinationals.

This advert is intended to simply raise awareness of this upcoming tender opportunity - please do not respond to it: If you are interested and wish to find out more about the NFI at this stage, please go to https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/national-forest-inventory/about-the-nfi/ .

It is anticipated that a 'Prior Information Notice' will be published in the OJEU (and Contracts Finder) next month, at which stage it is intended to provide an indication of the overall procurement process timescales for this contract. (All dates in this notice are indicative only).