Highways Surfacing / Structural maintenance works from 2026

The Council are seeking to procure a direct relationship with a contractor to deliver cost-effective resurfacing works in order to maximise the Council's additional capital investment in roads.

The Structural Maintenance Contract is estimated to be valued at £20m per annum, over the initial 2-year term and potentially the optional 4-year extension period. The contract value range is based on predicted budgets over the full term of the contract. The values also include contingency to account for inflation, potential one-off funding bids, DfT awards and other unknown possible increases in capital funding over the contracted period.

Thank you for expressing an interest in our Structural maintenance works contract. We are keen to seek feedback from the market on our proposed methods of procurement.

Below are some questions we have selected that we hope can improve the tender process for all parties. A response isn’t mandatory, but we would appreciate any input you can provide. The question list is not exhaustive so please provide any other comments you feel would be beneficial. We would like to receive your feedback by 5pm on Thursday 3rd April 2025.

1. We are planning to use the NEC 4 Term Services Contract (2017 edition) incorporating Main Option A, dispute resolution Option W2 and Secondary Options X1, X2, X4, X15, X18, Y(UK)2, Y(UK)3 contract form using a Task Order process to order work. Is that what you would expect and is there anything that we should be aware of regarding this approach?

2. Are there any Optional clauses that you feel should / should not be included?

3. Are there any Z clauses that you feel should be included?

4. Are there any Z clauses that would affect your willingness to bid?

5. What would be a reasonable way to carry out a fair competition with the Price element?

6. Are there any recent tenders from other Public Sector clients (preferably Local Authorities) that we should take inspiration from?

7. Any common issues/mistakes with tendering for this type of contract that we should avoid?

8. If you submitted a tender for GCC’s previous contract in 2021 are you able to share your feedback on the process?

9. We are proposing to have a contract period of 2 years extendable for a further 4 years in 1-year increments. Do you consider this to be a reasonable contract period with reasonable extension periods?

10. Budgets for each contractual year are becoming more difficult to predict and as with most local authorities we are not able to guarantee annual budgets. We are currently running at £20M per year, but this may be reduced in future years especially subject to future government constraints. Do you have any comments on this?