Issue 7 · 10 November 2026

88 notices scanned · 6 worth your time

Six from 88 open notices. Gloucestershire moved its surfacing deadline five and a half hours earlier, to 6:30 in the morning, in an edit most bidders will not see. And United Utilities published a £600m notice with its drafters' comment tags still in the text — then edited it and left them there.

Gloucestershire County Council

Surfacing works 2027–2031 (to 2035)

Value: £192,000,000 ex VAT (£230,400,000 inc) — about £24m a year
Term: 4 years + up to 4 — 1 Apr 2027 to 1 Apr 2031, extendable to 2035
Region: Gloucestershire — countywide
Closes: 3 Dec 2026, 06:30 · enquiries close 17 Nov, 06:30
Sector: Streetworks

Bid if

Gate: Open procedure, one stage, documents on the council's Ariba site. The notice was edited on 3 November and the deadlines moved: enquiries from 5pm on 17 November to 6:30am, and tenders from noon on 3 December to 6:30am. Anyone who downloaded the pack in October and planned to submit on the morning of the 3rd will miss it. Turnover, insurance and experience thresholds are in the documents, not the notice.
Fit: The structural maintenance programme for the county network: planing out and resurfacing to each scheme's design, with traffic management, site clearance, ironwork, siding, kerbing, road markings and some patching, plus smaller reactive schemes from area managers' budgets. Work is instructed by task order under an amended NEC4 Term Service Contract. At about £24m a year, this is for a surfacing contractor with its own planers, pavers and gangs in the South West.
Scoring: Price 70, Quality 15, Social Value 15. Social value is weighted as heavily as quality.
Price: The council gives about £24m a year as indicative and says it cannot guarantee scheme sizes or annual spend. Under an NEC4 TSC, every task order is priced from your tendered rates, so the rates you put in are the rates you work at for up to eight years. Read the amendments before you price — the money is made or lost on those clauses.
Verdict: Bid if you run surfacing gangs in the South West and can carry about £24m a year. Diary 6:30am on 3 December, not noon — the edit moved it.

Neath Port Talbot Council for the South Wales Trunk Road Agent (SWTRA), with Carmarthenshire and Monmouthshire

SWTRA highways and structures framework 2027

Value: £405,000,000 ex VAT (£486,000,000 inc) across 2 lots
Term: 4 years + up to 2 — 1 Apr 2027 to 31 Mar 2031, extendable to 2033
Region: South Wales — the strategic road network
Closes: 18 Dec 2026, 12:00 · enquiries close 4 Dec, 12:00
Sector: Civils

Bid if

Gate: Open procedure on eTenderWales (itt_118645), and you must also be registered on the Central Digital Platform. Eight places at most. The conditions of participation are all 'refer to tender documentation', so the turnover and experience bars are in the pack. Marked SME-suitable, but on a trunk road network that is a big ask.
Fit: Lot 1, highways and structures, £252m: carriageway maintenance, structural renewals, active travel, safety fencing, noise, depot works, tunnels, traffic management, lighting, bridge inspection and strengthening, M&E, communications and ITS. Lot 2, surfacing and ancillary, £153m: pavement surfacing and improvement, emergency pavement work, drainage, ironwork, kerbing, footways and road markings.
Scoring: Price 60, Technical 30, Social Value 10. Call-offs with or without competition, set out in the documents. No supplier fee.
Price: £405m over up to six years between at most eight firms is a lot of money per place, which is why this one will be contested hard. Lot 2 is the realistic entry for a regional surfacing contractor. Lot 1 needs structures and M&E capability, or a team that has both.
Verdict: Bid if you already work on trunk roads in South Wales and can show it. Lot 2 is the realistic way in for a surfacing contractor; Lot 1 needs structures as well.

Shropshire Council

Highway repairs and patching under a mixed economy

Value: £100,000,000 ex VAT (£120,000,000 inc) over up to nine years
Term: 5 years + 2 + 2 — 1 Apr 2027 to 31 Mar 2032, extendable to 2036 on KPIs
Region: Shropshire
Closes: 4 Dec 2026, 12:00 · enquiries close 23 Nov, 12:00
Sector: Streetworks

Bid if

Gate: One contractor. Minimum turnover £22m in at least one of the last three years, a current ratio of at least 1.0 and a satisfactory financial standing check — the council will look at parent company support, cash or banking facilities if you miss the ratio. Experience of highway maintenance of comparable scale. Published on 9 November with a 4 December close: under four weeks for a nine-year contract. Submission on Delta eSourcing.
Fit: Working alongside the council's own crews in a mixed economy: potholes, edges, ironwork, kerbs, footways, road markings, signs, street furniture, grips, crack sealing and alternative repair methods; winter gritting, snow and flooding support; and programmed hand and machine patching, minor improvements and backlog work. The notice marks it SME-suitable, but the £22m turnover bar rules most SMEs out.
Scoring: Quality 50, Price 40, Social Value 10 — quality leads, which is unusual for patching.
Price: £100m is the ceiling over nine years, and volumes are not guaranteed. The extensions depend on hitting KPIs, so price the first five years to stand on their own. Check how winter and emergency standby is paid before you price it — it is a cost whether it snows or not.
Verdict: Bid if you turn over £22m or more and already patch and repair highways at county scale. Read the KPI regime first — it decides whether you get years six to nine.

Falkirk Council, with Clackmannanshire and Stirling

Temporary traffic management services framework

Value: £3,100,000 ex VAT
Term: 4 years — 1 Apr 2027 to 31 Mar 2031
Region: Scotland — Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Stirling
Closes: 7 Dec 2026, 11:00
Sector: Streetworks

Bid if

Gate: Open procedure on Public Contracts Scotland, up to five places. Insurance: employer's liability £10m, public liability £5m, product liability £5m and motor £5m. ISO 9001, 45001 and 14001 certificates, or equivalent evidence. A Creditsafe score under 30 can exclude you unless you show other financial evidence. Two examples from the last three years. And a cyber security assessment on the Supply25 system, which most TM firms will not have done before — register early.
Fit: Chapter 8 temporary traffic management, to the Safety at Street Works and Road Works code of practice, across three neighbouring councils. A traffic management company with crews and kit in the Forth Valley.
Scoring: Price 70, Quality 30.
Price: £3.1m over four years across up to five firms is about £155k a firm a year if work is shared evenly. At 70% price, your day rates and set-up charges decide it. The £10m employer's liability requirement is a fixed cost to check against that before you bid.
Verdict: Bid if you are a Chapter 8 TM company working in the Forth Valley with the ISO certificates and insurance in place. Do the Supply25 cyber assessment first — it is the step most likely to catch you out.

North Lanarkshire Council

Gigabit broadband to 37,000 council homes — build and service

Value: £85,450,527 ex VAT
Term: 14 years + up to 5 — build within five years
Region: Scotland — North Lanarkshire
Closes: 8 Dec 2026, 12:00 — selection stage (SPD) · invitations to tender around 21 Dec
Sector: Telecoms

No bid

Gate: Competitive procedure with negotiation. 8 December is the SPD, not the tender: the council shortlists the top three on SPD questions 4C.1.2, 4C.3 and 4C.4 and only those three get to bid. One agreement, no lots.
Fit: Design and build full fibre to about 37,000 council homes — houses, cottage flats and low- and high-rise blocks — including the civils, ducts, chambers, cabinets and in-building work, then run it: routers, internet service to every property, and a customer service centre for tenants, for 14 years plus up to 5. That is an altnet or ISP with a build arm and the funding behind it. The build contractors are its supply chain.
Scoring: Quality 60, Price 40 at tender. At selection, three scored SPD questions decide who gets that far. Variants are allowed within the minimum requirements.
Price: You are pricing nineteen years of service and a technology refresh at year seven, not a build. The council has built in benchmarking at year five, so the margin you price at the start gets tested.
Verdict: No bid unless you are an altnet or ISP that can build and run a network for 19 years. For fibre contractors, the play is the build partnership with whichever three operators are shortlisted.

United Utilities

Only Rainwater into Windermere — design and integration partner

Value: £60m to £600m ex VAT, depending on the delivery-phase role
Term: 4 years for development, then up to a further 9 years in increments
Region: Cumbria — the Windermere catchment
Closes: 30 Nov 2026, 14:00 · enquiries close 17 Nov, 14:00
Sector: Utilities

No bid

Gate: Competitive flexible procedure on EU Supply. The first version said unlimited suppliers; the edit the next morning changed it to one. Awarded without competition from there. The description still carries the drafters' comment tags '[SM1.1][WD1.2]' after the edit — a sign of how fast this went out.
Fit: One consultant to take the programme from feasibility through outline design, planning, the Development Consent Order, land, EIA, site investigation and early contractor involvement, then possibly act as system integrator and detailed designer during delivery. The works behind it are first-time sewerage, remote treatment, surface water and highway runoff, a tunnel, sewers, rising mains, pumping stations and a treatment works upgrade. This is for the largest engineering consultancies.
Scoring: Technical 60, Commercial 40.
Price: £60m to £100m for the development phase, up to £500m if the partner becomes the detailed designer in delivery. Contractors are not pricing anything yet.
Verdict: No bid for contractors. Watch it instead: site investigation and early contractor involvement will be bought by the winner, and the delivery-phase works will follow the DCO.

Issue 7 · 10 November 2026

Surfacing works 2027–2031 (to 2035)

SWTRA highways and structures framework 2027

Highway repairs and patching under a mixed economy

Temporary traffic management services framework

Gigabit broadband to 37,000 council homes — build and service

Only Rainwater into Windermere — design and integration partner

Get it before the deadline, not after