Using contractors

As part of your planning you should have decided whether to use the skills within your group, local volunteers or a specialist contractor for the work. This will depend on the skills available in your group and the technical difficulty of the work proposed. For clearance of vegetation you may be able to work safely with volunteers and, with some training, do simple drainage and surfacing work. For more complex work, including repairs and construction, the most sensible option may be to employ competent contractors to do the work for you.

However, employing contractors brings legal obligations, so you might want to consider getting support and assistance from others – perhaps the local access officer or Paths for All. One of the most important things to remember is that using contractors still requires some time from you, to make sure they deliver what you want and to deal with any unexpected items that crop up.

You may have already used a consultant for the design stage of your project, so you might have written a project brief already. If not, this factsheet provide information on how to write a good brief. When it comes to the actual building work, you should follow the same principles in terms of writing a good, clear brief and expecting to work with your contractor throughout the process.

Depending on the size of the construction work, you need to decide if you're going to seek competitive tenders for the job. The purpose of seeking competitive tenders is to ensure that the work you want done is carried out to the highest possible standards at the best possible price.  However, it's important to ensure that you assess tenders fairly and have a clear rationale for why you've chosen your successful contractor.

This factsheet provides advice on inviting and assesing tenders and managing a contract to ensure you get the work done.  There's also further information available in the Lowland Paths Guide.