Fusion21 has published a Preliminary Market Engagement Notice (PMEN) ahead of the renewal of its Grounds Maintenance Framework, covering UK-wide grounds maintenance and associated services. The estimated total value is £85,000,000 (ex VAT) over 4 years, with the framework currently expected to run from 8 June 2026 to 7 June 2030.
For existing grounds maintenance providers, this is a good moment to get organised early, stress-test your evidence, and help shape how the opportunity is structured before the Invitation to Tender (ITT) is released.
Key Details at a Glance
- Opportunity: Grounds Maintenance Framework
- Contracting authority: Fusion21 Members Consortium
- Estimated value: £85,000,000 ex VAT (£102,000,000 inc VAT)
- Duration: 4 years
- Estimated framework dates: 8 June 2026 to 7 June 2030
- Engagement deadline: 22 December 2025
- Estimated tender notice date: 6 January 2026
- Coverage: national and regional, with stated suitability for SMEs and VCSEs
Read the preliminary market engagement notice for additional details.
What Services Are in Scope?
The framework will cover grounds maintenance and “associated services” for participating contracting authorities across the UK. The scope includes (but is not limited to):
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Routine and reactive grass cutting, lawn care, turf management
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Hedges, shrubs, flowerbeds, seasonal planting
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Weed control, including approved herbicides and sustainable alternatives
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Tree maintenance, pruning, arboriculture works
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Litter picking, leaf clearance, general tidiness
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Winter services such as gritting and snow clearance (where applicable)
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Inspections, reporting, and compliance with relevant H&S and environmental standards
What Suppliers Need to Have
Successful suppliers will need to be able to provide evidence of:
- Relevant experience and technical capability in grounds maintenance
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Working to ISO standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 (or equivalent quality systems)
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A commitment to sustainability, biodiversity, and social value outcomes, aligned to the Procurement Act 2023’s public benefit requirements
This points to bids that balance operational delivery (methods, resources, mobilisation) with measurable outcomes (environmental performance, reporting, and community benefits).
Bid Readiness Checklist for Grounds Maintenance Suppliers
If you want to use the time between now and January well, focus on evidence and delivery detail, not just policy statements.
1) Operational Delivery Proof
Pull together recent, relevant examples showing: mobilisation plans, seasonal resourcing, supervisor coverage, subcontractor controls, response times, customer comms, and how you keep standards consistent across multiple sites.
2) Quality Assurance
Make it easy to follow your process: inspection regimes, audit trails, KPI reporting, snagging, complaints handling, corrective action, and how you evidence ISO-aligned systems in practice.
3) Environmental and Biodiversity Delivery
The notice explicitly calls out sustainability and biodiversity. Build a clear narrative around reduced chemical use, integrated weed management, waste and arisings, equipment emissions, habitat-friendly practices, and how you report outcomes.
4) Social Value
The Procurement Act 2023 framework puts strong emphasis on delivering value for money and broader public benefit outcomes. Tie social value to what you can realistically deliver on the contract: local jobs, apprenticeships, supply chain spend, schools and community activity, and fair payment practices.
5) Pricing Approach
If you have views on what makes pricing workable in grounds maintenance (seasonality, reactive vs planned, asset condition variability), the engagement phase is your chance to feed that in.
How Thornton & Lowe Can Help You Prepare
If you are already delivering grounds maintenance contracts, the next step is turning what you do well day-to-day into clear, evaluator-friendly evidence that scores across quality, sustainability, mobilisation, and social value.
Thornton & Lowe supports suppliers with hands-on bid writing that strengthens your answers, sharpens your win themes, and makes sure your evidence is presented in a way evaluators can quickly verify.
If you are working across multiple opportunities at once, you can use Tender Library and Tender Pipeline to manage your bid pipeline so key dates, responsibilities, version control, and review cycles stay on track as the ITT is released.
Where you need additional capacity, our bid administration service can take the pressure off by coordinating timelines, documents, clarifications, and submissions, keeping everything moving without distractions from delivery.
And if you want to build in-house capability ahead of the tender window, we offer training to help you write stronger bids, focused on what evaluators look for and how to turn operational delivery into high-scoring responses.
Want to assess your bid readiness? Download our self-assessment scorecard.
Get Ready
With an estimated tender notice date of 6 January 2026 and a planned go-live in June 2026, the best time to get organised is now. Start building your evidence library now, including mobilisation, QA, environmental, social value, and reporting. Then, plan your bid timetable for early January 2026, when Fusion21 expects to publish the tender notice and ITT.
