Track the business activity and commercial plans of Exmoor National Park Authority — identify tender and future spending opportunities before they reach the market, follow cabinet and committee decisions, and understand the council’s priorities, with intelligence extracted from 29 analysed meetings.
Meetings analysed29
Procurement opportunities17
Pressures tracked31
Estimated pipeline value£34m–£53m
Exmoor National Park Authority Procurement Intelligence | QuorumInsight
Active procurement topics
Over the last 12 months, the most frequently discussed commercial topics in this council's meetings have been Construction & Building Works (26 mentions, easing), Professional Services (19 mentions, easing), Economic Development & Business Support (18 mentions, rising) and IT & Digital (16 mentions, rising).
Commercial signals extracted from recent Exmoor National Park Authority meetings — approvals, budget decisions and early procurement discussions, before a tender is published.
The finance report said the authority delivered over £1.45 million of capital investment in 2025/26, with around £1.4 million funded by DERA capital grant and the remainder from internal resources. Spending covered nature recovery, habitat creation, estate and visitor infrastructure, operational equipment and digital transformation. This is a significant spend pattern and indicates continuing procurement across multiple categories.
“So despite those pressures, our relatively careful budget management, strong external income, we've had very good interest earnings over the last couple of years. It's meant that after excluding specific accounting adjustment, the authority generated an underlying management surp…”
Members approved the letter of representation, adopted the final statement of accounts for 2024/25, and noted the draft audit opinion. The auditors expected to issue an unqualified clean opinion, so this was a formal governance approval rather than a spending decision, but it finalised the authority's financial statements.
“"I'd like to introduce to you Grace Hawkins and Oscar Edwards of Grant Fton to um to lead you through these um items this morning."”
The authority noted annual member allowances and reimbursements totalled just over £91k, rising in line with the 2.5% national council allowance uplift. The report was presented for transparency and public accountability rather than as a procurement issue, but it is a recurring governance cost.
“It just states how much has been paid in allowances to members indicates some of the the meetings they've attended. So just just headline figure just over 91,000 allowances. That's an inflationary increase in the previous year where we applied in year 2.5 allowance in line with t…”
The Authority is preparing a major landscape recovery submission for Exmoor Heartland covering about 11,000 hectares and including around 4,000 hectares of its own land. If approved, it would create long-term delivery work, monitoring, governance, and contracting opportunities over 20 to 30 years.
“"we've been working for the last two years on developing um a landscape recovery scheme uh reviving X more tightlands um in the as it says uh in the heart of the national park uh for the last couple of years and we're now coming to the end of that period"”
The authority approved refreshed financial regulations and standing orders for contract regulation. The changes align procurement processes with the Procurement Act 2023, update job titles and audit procedures, and are intended to create a simpler, more flexible and transparent procurement system that better supports small, local and social enterprise suppliers.
“This this report really aims to refresh the the authorities financial management procurement process. Um they are essential for maintaining our our governance maintaining effective governance and ensuring we comply with current legislation. So the financial regulations appendix o…”
The committee adopted an updated local list of requirements for planning and other applications following a six-week consultation and 27 responses. Updates include legal fee references, sustainable drainage guidance links, and the current planning portal service charge.
“"In September, members agreed to public to start public consultation on the local list of requirements document. Public consultation period ran for six weeks from the 11th of September until the 10th of November. 27 responses were received in relation to the draft document."”
The meeting focused on three planning applications with clear procurement-adjacent implications: a refused then approved agricultural building, an affordable housing conversion with a Section 106 issue, and a heritage-led chapel conversion scheme approved despite policy conflict. Members repeatedly weighed landscape, rural business support, housing need, heritage conservation, and enforceability of planning controls. A Section 106 update also highlighted several live development agreements moving through completion.
The meeting focused on the authority’s corporate plan delivery, including major estate and nature-recovery programmes, alongside clear financial pressure from flat or reduced core grant and a growing reliance on external funding and income generation. Members also discussed service capacity issues affecting rights of way, planning, SSSI monitoring and local plan work, and raised a live tension between income-generating estate activity and local business impacts. The finance reports confirmed a balanced outturn, strong reserves, and significant capital investment, but highlighted continuing cash-flow and medium-term funding uncertainty.
The meeting was dominated by annual governance and committee appointment business rather than procurement decisions. Members confirmed vacancies, discussed how to rebalance committees and working groups, and noted that new and departing members would be brought into roles later in the year. The only operationally relevant point was a move away from formal member representation on the Axbridge LCN towards officer/ranger input, which may affect how the Authority engages with local networks and commissions work. A personnel update welcomed two new staff members, but no direct spending approvals or tender decisions were made.
The meeting was primarily a planning committee session with one substantive application at Driver Farm, where the committee supported works to the farmhouse including solar panel relocation, a package treatment plant, heat pumps, and associated alterations. Members also discussed a number of delegated decisions, including enforcement-related and retrospective applications, and raised operational issues with the new planning system and parish council training. No direct procurement decision was made, but there are clear operational implications around planning software usability, training, and enforcement case handling.
The committee mostly considered planning applications, but two items had clear procurement relevance: the replacement of a publicly accessible defibrillator on a listed building, and the ongoing section 106 process and highway-related conditions on the timber storage and chipping proposal linked to the combined heat and power plant. Members also discussed delegated decisions, including a rural worker dwelling refusal and an update on a converted church housing scheme, but these were mainly planning policy matters rather than procurement decisions. No major contracts were awarded, but the meeting confirmed a small capital-style replacement and ongoing compliance works that may affect future works procurement.
The meeting centred on approval of a £1.4m Defra-funded forestry capital programme for 2026-27, with a shift to program-level approval across asset renewal, nature recovery, heritage, digital and access projects. Members discussed deliverability, spend-to-save benefits, flexibility between themes, capital/revenue boundaries, and use of capital receipts. The council also received the external audit plan for 2025-26, including materiality, valuation risks, system changes and the move to updated valuation guidance. A standards committee update covered planning substitute notice periods, training and member-staff engagement.