Wiltshire Council and Gloucestershire County Council have put highway surfacing contracts worth a combined £392m excluding VAT out to tender. Both contracts carry identical bid deadlines: 19 November 2026.
Long-term contracts up to 2037
Published on 8 October, the tenders relate to long-term surfacing work in adjacent counties. Wiltshire’s contract is a term machine surfacing arrangement, estimated at £200m excluding VAT (£240m including VAT). Gloucestershire’s contract is for surfacing works totalling £192m excluding VAT (£230.4m including VAT).
The Wiltshire contract runs initially for six years from June 2027, with two two-year extension options that could take the contract to 2037. Gloucestershire’s contract runs four years from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2031, with a possible four-year extension to March 2035.
Contract scope and award procedures
Both contracts use the open procedure under the Procurement Act 2023, allowing any supplier to bid in a single stage. Neither contract is divided into lots.
Wiltshire’s contract, reference HE1076, covers term machine surfacing on highways and other council land. It includes associated civils work, road markings, cat’s eyes, loop cutting and necessary traffic management.
Gloucestershire’s contract forms part of its structural maintenance programme. It includes structural repairs, planing existing surfaces, replacing layers to design depth, smaller reactive schemes, and limited patching schemes. Work orders will be issued by task or scheme.
Different priorities in price and quality
Wiltshire Council allocates 45% of the award criteria to price, 30% to quality, 15% to sustainability, and 10% to social value. It emphasises suitability for small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary, community and social enterprises.
Gloucestershire prioritises price more heavily, with 70% weighting, and quality and social value at 15% each. This matches the weighting used in its previous surfacing contract tender stage.
The differing weightings affect bidding strategy. A higher price weighting rewards the lowest rates, while Wiltshire’s balance allows quality and sustainability scores to influence the outcome more strongly.
Current contractors and market significance
Tarmac is the incumbent contractor for Gloucestershire, where the existing contract was extended by 12 months to allow for re-procurement. In Wiltshire, Tarmac also holds the current machine surfacing contract, awarded in 2020 for five years with a possible two-year extension.
The simultaneous tenders amounting to nearly £400m represent a significant opportunity in the South West surfacing market. The matching closing date will shape contractor planning and bids in the coming weeks.
