Contract award
Sefton names Dowhigh for 54 million pound highways term maintenance
By Staff Writer | 07-09-2026
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council has named Dowhigh Limited as the winning tenderer for its Highways Term Maintenance HM10 contract, covering highway and footway reactive maintenance across the borough. The contract award notice published on Find a Tender on 7 September 2026 records a contract value of 54,000,000 pounds excluding VAT, 64,800,000 pounds including VAT, for an initial five years from 18 December 2026 with up to three one year extensions.
The award
The notice is a UK6 contract award notice under the Procurement Act 2023, which means the award decision has been made but the contract is not yet signed. The award decision date is 7 September 2026 and assessment summaries were sent to tenderers the same day. The standstill period runs to 16 September 2026, eight working days, and the earliest date the contract will be signed is given as 30 September 2026. The estimated contract dates are 18 December 2026 to 17 December 2031, with a possible extension to 17 December 2034, eight years in all.
Five tenders were received. Two were assessed in the final stage, both from small and medium sized enterprises. One supplier was awarded the contract and one was unsuccessful. Because the contract is above 5 million pounds, the notice names the unsuccessful supplier: Huyton Asphalt Civils Ltd of the Cunard Building, Liverpool. The procedure was the open procedure, and the council records that it did not undertake preliminary market engagement, having assessed that it was not required for the nature and scope of the procurement.
The 54,000,000 pounds is the council's stated contract value on the award notice, excluding VAT, for the full eight year term including extensions. It is not a guaranteed spend: the notice says participation in the tender in no way guarantees the successful tenderer any given volume of work over the contract period. Work is issued through task orders.
What the contract covers
The core scope is reactive maintenance at separate sites anywhere within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, described in task orders. The anticipated work types are footway maintenance including isolated repairs, with materials that may include bituminous surfacing, precast flags, Southport tiles, blockwork and precast kerbs and edgings, together with adjustment of utility covers and other ironwork; carriageway maintenance including isolated repairs, patching and reinstatement of road markings; maintenance of road restraint systems; and trial pits within the highway boundary.
The contractor must provide an out of hours call out service. After 16:00 on weekdays and for the full 24 hours on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays the authority operates a night security service, and work issued verbally to the contractor's call out team requires attendance on site within one hour of the call. Cover is also required during any Christmas shutdown. During extreme weather the contractor may be instructed to supply operatives, vehicles and plant to assist with daytime winter gritting and snow clearance across the network. The scope also includes scheduled inspection and servicing of three pumps and associated systems, including confined space entry, and utility searches on a call off basis with no minimum volume and no standing charge.
The service manager may also instruct additional activities: repair or renewal of existing highway and land drainage including culverts, ditches, pipework, manholes, chambers, catchpits, outfalls and gullies; construction of new drainage systems; footway reconstruction schemes; carriageway surfacing schemes including full reconstruction, resurfacing, planing and adjustment of ironwork; CCTV surveys of drains and sewers; and site testing including coring, skid resistance, surface texture, deflection and structural testing, density and compaction, permeability, retro reflectivity and adhesion testing. The notice states that cleansing of the drainage system will be carried out by others, with whom the contractor may need to work.
Performance and extension
The council will use key performance indicators to monitor the contractor throughout the contract, and performance will determine whether an extension is offered at the end of the initial five year period. The three twelve month extensions may be taken individually or together, dependent on acceptable performance. The notice also reserves the right to additional purchases while the contract is valid, for works related to the original scope that may become required but are not foreseen at this point.
Dowhigh Limited is recorded at Park Lane West, Liverpool, L30 6UH, in the Sefton region, with Companies House number 01210665. The notice records it as an SME. No statement from either the council or the contractor accompanies the notice, and none is reproduced here.