SWT direct award brought forward

摘要

On January 4 DfT published a Prior Information Notice announcing its intention to make a direct award 'without a call for competition' of a contract to operate the South West Trains franchise. Such OJEU notices are required under EU procurement rules if the contract is to run for more than 23 months. However, the OJEU indicates a significant change to DfT's original refranchising schedule (RB1435 P7). This showed the SWT direct award franchise agreement starting in February 2017, but the OJEU says that it is now expected to run from 'January 2015 to March 2019 to align with the Network Rail Control Period 5'.