Let's Get Growing

Descriptions

Leicester City Council (LCC) is considering commissioning a Let’s Get Growing service (LGG) for Leicester. It is anticipated, dependent upon an engagement exercise, that tenders for this service would be sought in 2026, to enable a new contract to begin from 01/04/2027, immediately after the end of our current contract providing 31/03/2027 services to Leicester. The LGG service will be to incentivise and develop community food growing groups and opportunities for residents, to create greater community cohesion, enabling groups to come together to develop their green spaces and bring nature to their local area. The proposed LGG service will provide free gardening training through courses and workshops to ultimately develop community gardening groups. The service delivery will be through outreach sessions at any community venues such as LCC owned community assets e.g. community centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres, schools or through VCSE organisations across the city e.g. faith groups, food hubs, or other accessible local spaces. The service will empower individuals, strengthen their resilience, give them the tools to increase their confidence, knowledge, and their skills to improve the green spaces around them. Sessions will be led by trained accredited horticultural staff with experience of developing community groups and delivering training programmes in the community.

Engagement

Leicester City Council (LCC) is is carrying out a Soft Market Test to gather feedback from potential providers on the proposed Let’s Get Growing service (LGG) for Leicester. It is anticipated, dependent upon an engagement exercise, that tenders for this service would be sought in 2026, to enable a new contract to begin from 01/04/2027, immediately after the end of our current contract providing 31/03/2027 services to Leicester. As part of the commissioning process, the authority is undertaking a soft market test. This gives potential providers and other stakeholders the opportunity to express their interests and feed in their views about the potential service model and specification principles. The commissioners will use the information to appraise options and further develop the specification. This process does not constitute a formal tender or other competitive bidding process and will not result in the letting of a Contract. The authority is using this process solely to test the market to gather information and ascertain the level of interest in this particular service. There are therefore no formal criteria which we will use to judge your responses and it is not our intention to provide any feedback.