Salford Technical and Highways Works Framework: Bid Plan for the 4 November 2026 Deadline

Salford Technical and Highways Works Framework: Bid Plan for the 4 November 2026 Deadline

Salford City Council's Technical and Highways Works Framework (reference DN780443 on The Chest) closes at 15:00 on 4 November 2026, giving you seven working days to complete or strengthen your submission for a share of £300m of work running through to 31 March 2035. This is an open framework with five lots, and ranking determines who gets first refusal on call-offs, so your selection questionnaire and method statements directly control revenue for the next eight years.

As of the week starting 2026-10-23, the notice (Find a Tender reference 090162-2026, published 6 October 2026) confirms the framework will award by ranking within each lot, with some call-offs using further competition among ranked suppliers. That means a contractor ranked fourth on a lot will receive fewer direct award opportunities than one ranked first, and weaker rankings can exclude you from smaller value projects entirely.

What ranking means for future call-offs

Most local authority highways frameworks operate a cascade model. The authority approaches the top-ranked contractor for a given project scope and value band. If that contractor cannot take the work, or if the project exceeds a threshold that triggers competition, it moves down the ranking. On a £300m framework over eight years, the difference between first and fifth place in your lot is often the difference between £25m and £4m of work.

Salford's notice does not specify value bands for direct award, but typical practice on schemes of this scale reserves direct awards for projects under £500,000 and requires further competition above that figure. If you rank third, you may never see a direct award. If you rank first, you control the pipeline until capacity forces you to decline.

The practical consequence is that your PQQ answers and method statements are not pass or fail documents. They are scored instruments that set an eight-year commercial relationship. A supplier who treats this as a compliance exercise and submits generic answers will rank below a competitor who tailors every response to Salford's published priorities and demonstrates local delivery capability.

Lot selection and capacity planning

The framework is divided into five lots. Until the final contract award notice is published, the exact definitions are speculative, but most technical and highways frameworks at this scale follow a pattern: planned highways maintenance, reactive highways works, civils and infrastructure schemes, minor works and patching, and professional services or design support.

You should bid for every lot where you hold relevant accreditations and can evidence at least three comparable contracts delivered in the last 36 months. Bidding for a lot where you cannot demonstrate prior delivery of similar scope and value typically results in a low technical score that pulls down your ranking across the entire submission.

Do not bid for a lot solely because the potential value is attractive. Evaluators score your evidence of capability, and a thin answer on one lot can signal weak bid discipline that affects how they read your responses elsewhere. If your business has delivered £2m highways resurfacing contracts but never touched drainage civils, omit the civils lot and focus your effort on strengthening the lots where you can rank first or second.

Evidence evaluators score for civils and highways

Salford's notice references method statements, safety record, local labour commitments and social value. These are standard criteria, but the weighting and the granularity of evidence required varies significantly between authorities.

Method statements for highways and civils work are typically scored on programme realism, traffic management competence, environmental mitigation and resource deployment. A strong method statement names the plant you will use, explains how you will phase the work to minimise disruption, identifies the specific environmental controls for working near watercourses or in residential areas, and demonstrates that your programme accounts for statutory undertaker coordination and utility diversions. A weak method statement offers principles and assurances without operational detail.

Safety record is almost always scored using RIDDOR data, and most frameworks require at least three years of reportable incident rates. If your AFR (accident frequency rate) or LTI (lost time injury) rate is above industry median, your score will suffer unless you can demonstrate year-on-year improvement and explain the measures you have taken to drive performance down. Evaluators compare your numbers to HSE published averages for SIC code 42 (civil engineering), where the previous three-year average to 2025 sat around 450 incidents per 100,000 workers. If your rate is materially higher, address it explicitly in your method statement rather than hoping the panel overlooks it.

Local labour and social value are increasingly weighted heavily in frameworks above £50m. Salford sits within Greater Manchester, and the authority will expect commitments to local apprenticeships, supply chain spend within the region, and engagement with community organisations. A scored social value method statement should include numeric commitments: number of apprenticeships per £10m of work, percentage of supply chain spend within 30 miles, number of community engagement events per annum. Generic commitments to "supporting local employment" score poorly because they cannot be measured or enforced in contract.

Worked example: lot ranking and pipeline impact

Illustrative scenario. A civils contractor bids for Lot 2 (civils and infrastructure) and Lot 4 (minor works). The contractor scores 78 out of 100 on Lot 2 and ranks third out of nine. It scores 85 out of 100 on Lot 4 and ranks first out of twelve. Over the life of the framework, Lot 2 generates 22 direct award opportunities. The contractor receives eight of those, because the top two ranked suppliers have first refusal and between them take the majority. Lot 4 generates 140 direct award opportunities, and the contractor receives 87, declining the remainder due to capacity constraints or regional coverage limits.

The contractor's total call-off value from the framework reaches £31m, of which £27m comes from Lot 4 where it ranked first. Had it scored five additional points on Lot 2 and moved into second place, it would have accessed an additional £6m of work. That five-point gap might have come from one stronger method statement or one additional case study evidencing work in an urban environment.

Plan for the final seven days

If you are starting a fresh submission this week (week starting 2026-10-23), you will not produce a competitive entry unless you already hold the baseline evidence: contracts register, insurance certificates, health and safety policy, RIDDOR data, quality accreditations, financial accounts and staff CVs. Assuming you have that material, allocate two days to selection questionnaire answers, three days to method statements, one day to review and pricing, and submit with at least two hours to spare before the 15:00 deadline on 4 November 2026.

If you are already midway through and need to strengthen a weak section, focus on the highest-weighted criteria first. For most highways frameworks, method statements carry more weight than policy documents, and technical scoring determines ranking while financial standing is typically pass or fail. Rewriting a generic method statement with specific plant lists, named subcontractors and a programme bar chart will add more points than polishing your quality policy.

For contractors who have left it late or encountered resourcing problems, external bid support can be deployed quickly on this type of framework. The time-critical path is method statements, and an experienced highways bid writer can draft those in 48 hours if you supply project examples and technical input. We cover late-stage support in more detail under urgent bid writing and late-stage bid support.

Pricing on an open framework is typically a schedule of rates rather than a lump sum. You will be asked to price common activities (square metre rates for resurfacing, linear metre rates for kerbing, hourly rates for plant and labour) against a bill of quantities. Your rates need to be competitive relative to other ranked suppliers, but they are not the dominant scoring factor. A supplier ranked first with mid-market rates will win more work than a supplier ranked fourth with the lowest rates, because ranking controls access to opportunities.

The final mechanical task is portal submission on The Chest. Test your login and file upload at least 24 hours before the deadline. The Chest has a stable track record, but large file uploads can fail on slower connections, and the portal locks at 15:00 precisely with no extension for technical issues. We address deadline discipline under tender deadlines.

Frequently asked questions

Can I bid for all five lots even if I have limited experience in some of them?

You can, but you will rank poorly on any lot where your case studies and method statements are weak, and a low ranking on one lot does not improve your chances on another. Bid only for lots where you can demonstrate at least three comparable contracts delivered in the last three years, and where you hold the relevant accreditations. A focused submission on two lots with strong evidence will generate more revenue over the framework term than a thin submission across all five.

What happens if I rank low on a lot but submit a competitive price on a further competition call-off?

You will still be eligible to win that call-off, because further competition evaluates price and quality afresh for the specific project. However, many call-offs below £500,000 on highways frameworks go to direct award based on ranking alone, and you will not be invited to bid. Ranking determines the volume of opportunities you see, and further competition only applies to a subset of the total work. Over an eight-year framework, the cumulative impact of ranking is far greater than individual call-off pricing.

Is there any benefit to submitting early, or should I use the full seven days?

Use the full time available. Early submission offers no scoring advantage, and evaluators do not begin assessment until after the deadline closes. The additional days allow you to refine method statements, strengthen evidence and review for inconsistencies between your answers. The only reason to submit early is if you have exhausted your capacity to improve the submission and want to eliminate the risk of a last-minute portal issue. Even then, submit no earlier than 48 hours before the deadline. Quality of content determines ranking, and ranking determines revenue.

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