Highways Material Testing & Laboratory Support 2017-18

Liverpool City Council is conducting a procurement exercise to acquire a competent consultant to undertake a wide range of materials testing and laboratory support services. The service will mainly support the Council’s annual highway improvement and maintenance work programmes and as such will involve the testing of bituminous mixtures, aggregates, soils and concretes and will involve laboratory and on site compliance testing.

This service will provide technical support to the LCC Highways and Transportation Team including specification support and on-site monitoring of the quality of materials, processes, and workmanship delivered to the Council.

General Requirements:-

This contract is to provide a service for the testing of highway and other construction materials.

The Contract period is 18 months and during this period the Council cannot guarantee the quantities or frequency of testing requirements or a minimum contract value.

The Council does not except minimum order quantities either by service quantity or value.

The terms and conditions of the contract are: NEC3 Professional Services Contract 2013

Testing Specifications:-

All source approval testing must be carried out in accordance with the:-
• Specification for highway Works Volume 1,
• the relevant current BS / BS EN standards and
• the materials must comply with the requirements of the Council’s specification.

The laboratory Consultant undertaking the material testing must be UKAS accredited to:

BS EN 933 for the testing of Geometrical Properties of Aggregates;
BS EN 1377 for the testing of Soils for Civil Engineering Purpose;
BS EN 12350 for the sampling and testing of concrete;
BS EN 12390 for the measuring on concrete strength;
BS EN 12697 for the testing of Bituminous Mixtures for Roads and other paved areas;

In addition to the above, Plate Bearing, Nuclear Density, Pavement Texture, Surface Irregularity and other on-site testing will be required.

All services supplied under this Contract shall conform to the requirements of BS/BS EN standards or other accredited standards, UK or EU, relating (but not limited) to; their production, preparation, handling, safety and labelling as may be in force during the period of the Contract.


Contract Volumes

The estimated number of annual tests is:

Subgrade Testing: circa 230No
Aggregates Testing: circa 150No.
Highway Cores: circa 500No
Bituminous Materials Tests: circa 200No.
Bituminous Pavements: circa 100No
Concrete: circa 60No.
Number of half day visits: circa 30No;
Number of full day visits; circa 30No.


These estimates of testing requirements by Liverpool City Council are either historically based or estimated and are provided for guidance only. The Council cannot guarantee the quantities of testing requirements throughout the contract period.