Mersey firms urged to bid for road contracts worth a total of £280m
Liverpool City Council has created a framework divided into three lots with projects ranging from £250,000 to £12m for planned highways works including patching and potholes. Tony McDonough reports
Contractors across Merseyside are being invited to bid for multiple contracts worth up to £280m on Liverpool’s four-year highways programme.
The city council has created a framework divided into three lots with projects ranging from £250,000 to £12m for planned highways works including patching and potholes, ground investigation, piling, remedial works, trail pits, bridges and tunnels.
There will be 12 places in total on the framework, across the three lots, with up to 24 suppliers invited to tender.
The new roads frameworks have been designed specifically for the city council to deliver its Better Roads programme – with a focus on enabling Liverpool and Merseyside based contractors the opportunity to pitch for council contracts, bolstering the local supply chain.
Further procurement frameworks are also being designed to assist Foundations – the new ethical housing company established by the council to create 10,000 new homes and to refurbish dilapidated housing stock in the city.
Foundations will also be given ambitious targets to bolster apprenticeships in the region’s construction sector. The frameworks can also can be utilised by other local bodies to contract works.
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said: “Liverpool’s roads are in need of a dramatic overhaul. Collective appeals to Government have largely fallen on deaf ears so we need to try something new and radical which tackles this issue and at the same time has a positive impact on the local economy.
“The funding for the roads is in place and Foundations has now been established so the time has now come to fine tune the plans and start delivering. To do this, and to make it easier for Liverpool companies to navigate our tendering process, the council’s procurement team has created our first bespoke frameworks.”
Interested parties must complete the Selection Questionnaire by Wednesday, October 17 – which can be found at the Pro Contract website, which is free for businesses to sign up to.