Issue 3 · 13 October 2026

101 notices scanned · 5 worth your time

Five from 101 open notices in our sectors closing before the end of November, and four of the five put price at 70%. The two no bids are settled before price comes into it — one by sheer scale, one by a rail accreditation most civils firms do not hold. Nothing in telecoms this week.

Caerphilly County Borough Council

Penallta Road Bridge strengthening (SA242)

Value: £600,000 ex VAT (£720,000 inc)
Term: 8 weeks — 4 Jan to 26 Feb 2027
Region: South Wales — Ystrad Mynach, Caerphilly
Closes: 30 Oct 2026, 14:00 · enquiries close 28 Oct, 17:00
Sector: Civils

Bid if

Gate: The buyer wants a principal contractor, so the CDM duties are yours. Nothing else is published — no turnover threshold, no insurance level, no accreditation. Submission is through Proactis, Caerphilly's own supplier portal, which is a registration in its own right. Below threshold, open competition, flagged as suitable for SMEs, with Welsh procurement rules applying.
Fit: A reinforced concrete box built under and around an existing bridge that stays in place, the voids infilled with foam concrete, permanent formwork in blockwork faced with blue pennant stone. That is structures work with a masonry finish, not a highways job. What the notice never says is what the bridge crosses — a river, a railway or a road — and that decides your access, your consents and your programme more than anything in the scope.
Scoring: Cost 70, Quality 30, with no breakdown of the quality. Seventy per cent on the number is a lot of weight for a structures job, and not much on the method — which is where a job like this actually goes wrong.
Price: £600k for eight weeks in January and February, pouring concrete beneath a structure you are not allowed to remove. The notice says outright that the new box changes how the bridge carries its load, so expect the temporary works and the sequence to be looked at hard. Enquiries close on 28 October, two days before tenders. Ask what the bridge crosses well before then — an answer on the 28th leaves you two days to reprice.
Verdict: Bid if you build reinforced concrete structures in South Wales and can staff eight winter weeks. Find out what is under the bridge first — the notice does not say.

Hull City Council

West Area footway improvements

Value: £180,000 ex VAT (£216,000 inc)
Term: 10 weeks — 16 Nov 2026 to 25 Jan 2027
Region: East Yorkshire — Kingston upon Hull
Closes: 21 Oct 2026, 12:00 · enquiries close 19 Oct, 23:55
Sector: Streetworks

Bid

Gate: Nothing is published beyond the procedure — no turnover threshold, no insurance level, no accreditation. What the notice does say is that incomplete bids will be eliminated, and on a one-stage open procedure that makes the paperwork a gate in its own right: every document in the pack, completed exactly as instructed. Submission is through EU-Supply. Below threshold, open competition.
Fit: A footway contractor already working in or near Hull. The scope sits in the documents rather than the notice, but £180k of footway improvement in one area of one city over ten weeks is a small firm's job — a couple of gangs, local plant and a supervisor who knows the council's specification.
Scoring: Price 70, quality 30, published as a single line with no breakdown of the quality questions. On a job this size at that weighting, the price decides it. The 30% will separate bidders who are within a few per cent of each other; it will not rescue one who is ten per cent high.
Price: Ten weeks from mid-November with Christmas in the middle, so call it eight working weeks of winter. Price the weather and the shutdown, not a clean ten-week run. One clerical slip worth knowing: the notice lists CPV 45250000, construction works for oil and gas plants, alongside footpath construction. It changes nothing you price, but it tells you how carefully the notice was put together.
Verdict: Bid. A small, plainly weighted footway scheme sized for a local firm — eight days to the deadline, so the only real risk is starting late.

Angus Council

Rural Mobility Hub — enabling infrastructure

Value: £4,650,000 ex VAT
Term: 12 months
Region: Scotland — Forfar, Angus
Closes: 9 Nov 2026, 12:00 — selection stage only · invitations to tender expected 2 Dec
Sector: Civils

Bid if

Gate: Two gates you can see. The winner must hold a performance bond worth 10% of the contract sum for the whole twelve months — around £465,000 on the published estimate. And the procedure is restricted: 9 November is the deadline for the selection questionnaire, not the tender, and Angus will invite between five and eight firms to price. The financial and technical thresholds are in the procurement documents, which are free to download from Public Contracts Scotland without registering.
Fit: Site clearance, drainage, road construction, landscaping and fencing — the enabling works only, for a mobility hub whose own buildings and kit come later. A regional civils contractor's job: £4.65m across a year, with community benefits written into the tender and the names and qualifications of your site team required up front.
Scoring: Price 70, Quality 30 at tender stage. But the first contest is selection, and only five to eight get through it. You are marked on your track record and your accounts before anyone sees a price, so the questionnaire deserves the effort most firms save for the tender.
Price: Nothing to price until December, and only if you are shortlisted. What to cost now is the bond. Ten per cent of £4.65m is roughly £465k of your surety's capacity tied up for a year. If your facility cannot carry that alongside the work you already hold, there is no point getting through selection.
Verdict: Bid if you can carry a £465k performance bond for twelve months and your accounts will put you in the top eight. The 9 November deadline is the questionnaire, not the price.

Gloucestershire County Council

Surfacing works 2027 to 2031 (2035)

Value: £192m ex VAT — circa £24m a year, not guaranteed
Term: 4 years + up to 4 — 1 Apr 2027 to 31 Mar 2035
Region: Gloucestershire — county-wide
Closes: 19 Nov 2026, 12:00 · enquiries close 3 Nov, 12:00
Sector: Streetworks

No bid

Gate: The legal, financial and technical conditions all read 'see tender documents', so the thresholds sit behind SAP Ariba. What the notice does show is the scale: one contract, no lots, roughly £24m of surfacing a year across the whole county. Whatever the turnover test turns out to be, it will be set against that number. Above threshold, open procedure, NEC4 Term Service Contract as amended.
Fit: Planing and resurfacing across the structural maintenance programme, reactive minor works from the area managers' budgets and some patching, all ordered task by task — with the traffic management, ironwork, kerbing and road markings included. That is a regional or national surfacing contractor with its own plant fleet and an asphalt supply it controls. A firm doing £2m or £3m a year is not who this is written for.
Scoring: Price 70, Quality 15, Social Value 15. On an eight-year term contract the price is a schedule of rates, and 70% of the marks going on rates for work nobody guarantees means the contest is over who will hold the lowest rates the longest.
Price: The council says plainly that no scheme size or annual spend is guaranteed, and the £24m a year is indicative. You would be committing a rate book for up to eight years under an amended NEC4 TSC, against a volume the buyer will not promise. Read the amendments first — they decide who carries that risk.
Verdict: No bid unless you already run a surfacing fleet at county scale. For everyone else the opportunity is the winner's supply chain — award is due in mid-January, so make the approach then.

Wigan Council

Boars Head footbridge superstructure renewal

Value: £975,000 ex VAT (£1,170,000 inc)
Term: 10 weeks — 5 Apr to 13 Jun 2027
Region: Greater Manchester — Wigan, over the West Coast Main Line
Closes: 20 Nov 2026, 12:00 · enquiries close 13 Nov, 12:00
Sector: Civils