Contract award

Blackburn with Darwen lets a 50 million pound highways framework

By Staff Writer  |  02-09-2026

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council has awarded its Surfacing and Civils Framework 2026 across four lots with a combined value of 50,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax. Eight contractors take places. The award notice was published at 16:21 on 1 September 2026 and the standstill period ends on 14 September 2026.

The four lots are highway surfacing works at 20,000,000 pounds, highway civils works at 20,000,000 pounds, cold milling works at 5,000,000 pounds and repairs to asphalt surfaces at 5,000,000 pounds. Each gross figure on the notice is exactly 1.2 times the net, so the notice carries value added tax at 20 per cent and nothing else. All four are recorded as works, all four as above threshold, and all four were awarded on 1 September 2026 by open procedure under a framework agreement.

Two years to September 2028, with two twelve month extension options that would carry the arrangement to September 2030.

Who takes what

Lot 1, highway surfacing works, goes to Holcim UK Limited, Multipave (NW) Limited and DSD Construction Limited. Lot 2, highway civils works, goes to NMS Civil Engineering Limited, Multipave (NW) Limited and George Cox and Sons Limited. Lot 3, cold milling works, goes to NMS Civil Engineering Limited and D.P. Cold Planing Limited. Lot 4, repairs to asphalt surfaces, goes to WJ North Limited and Multevo Limited.

Eight firms hold nine places between them, because two appear twice. Multipave holds a place on both surfacing and civils, and NMS Civil Engineering holds a place on both civils and cold milling. Of the eight, seven are recorded on the notice as small or medium sized enterprises and one as large. The addresses run across the north west and the near north: Coalville, Leyland, Carlisle, Ashton in Makerfield, Farnworth, Bolton, Newcastle under Lyme and Darwen.

Programme and classification

All four lots share the same period. The contract period starts on 1 October 2026 and ends on 30 September 2028, with a maximum extent date of 30 September 2030 and a renewal description on the notice of two twelve month extension options. The standstill period on all four ends at the close of 14 September 2026, so the earliest call off cannot precede the start date in any event.

The classifications separate the lots more clearly than the titles do. Lot 1 is classified as carriageway resurfacing works. Lot 2 is construction work for highways and roads. Lots 3 and 4 are both surface work for highways. Delivery on all four is recorded against Blackburn with Darwen. The notice does not publish a call off mechanism, a ranking, a rotation rule or a direct award threshold, and none is assumed here.

What the shape of the award tells a contractor

The council has split what could have been a single highways framework into four narrow parcels and then allowed firms to sit on more than one. That combination matters at call off. A firm holding surfacing and civils can be asked to price a scheme that crosses both, while a firm holding only cold milling can only be reached for the preparatory work. Where a call off spans two lots, the question of which lot governs the rates, and which set of terms applies, is decided by the framework documents rather than by the notice, and those documents are not published with it.

The 5,000,000 pound lots are the ones to watch. Cold milling and asphalt repair are planing and patching operations, usually ordered at short notice, priced against a schedule of rates and measured after the event. That is the part of a highways framework where disputes about quantities, standing time and out of hours working ordinarily arise, and it is the part with the fewest firms on it, two on each lot.

The notice publishes no count of tenderers on any lot, no award criteria weightings and no runner up, so nothing can be said here about how close the competition was.