The Environment Agency owns and maintains 42 ‘Class A’ strategic tide gauges, distributed around the UK coastline on behalf of the UK Coastal Flood Forecasting partnership. These are commonly referred to as the UKCFF tide gauges or UK National Tide Gauge Network (NTGN). The network currently consists of 21 sites in England, 10 in Scotland, 7 in Wales, 2 in Northern Ireland, 1 in Jersey and 1 in the Isle of Man. The Environment Agency is responsible for and manages all gauges in the network.

Use of the data is not restricted to the operating authority boundary in which a gauge is located, for example both the Environment Agency (England) and Natural Resources Wales (Wales) use the Liverpool tide gauge data in delivering their forecasting services.

The key requirements of this contract in relation to the UKCFF National Tide Gauge Network are:

• maintenance of 42 tide gauges to ensure the measuring performance of the gauge is compliant with the standards set in section 3;

• resolution of faults with the tide gauge measuring equipment and telemetry outstation to the standards set out in section 3;

• geodetic levelling at sites to ensure datum control to the standards set out in section 3;

• engagement and communication with EA contract manager and EA Environmental Monitoring Service (EMS), and wider teams as necessary;

• liaison with British Oceanographic Data Centre who are responsible for the QC and archiving of the NTGN data;

• liaison with land owners where our tide gauges are located to ensure continued access is retained for maintenance and repair works;

• adhering to the relevant H&S and CDM regulations 2015 in the maintenance of the tide gauges.