Tender
North East councils body tenders 125 million pound asbestos framework
By Staff Writer | 23 August 2026
A purchasing body owned by councils in the North East of England has gone to tender for an asbestos framework covering surveying, analysis and removal across the public sector, with a total value recorded as 125,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax. The notice was published on 21 August 2026 under the identifier 2026/S 000-079933.
The buyer is The Association of North East Councils Limited, which trades as NEPO. The requirement carries the reference NEPO234 and is described as a multi supplier, multi lot framework agreement for asbestos surveying services and asbestos removal works across a variety of public sector settings throughout the United Kingdom. The procedure is open, the main procurement category is services and the additional category is works.
The value recorded on the notice is 125,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax and 150,000,000 pounds including it, and the procurement is recorded as above the relevant threshold. Estimated contract dates run from 25 January 2027 to 24 January 2031, a term of four years. Tenders are due by 25 September 2026 at 12:00.
Twelve lots are published, and the way they are cut is the part a bidder should read first. Four service types repeat across three geographies. The four are asbestos surveying and analytical services in non domestic properties, asbestos removal works in non domestic properties, asbestos surveying and analytical services in domestic properties, and asbestos removal works in domestic properties. The three geographies are Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, Durham and Tees Valley, and national.
What the practitioner should take from this
Splitting surveying from removal across every geography is deliberate and it carries a consequence. A firm that both surveys and removes cannot assume it will hold both sides of the same patch, because the lots are separately awarded and separately competed. The separation also keeps the party that identifies the material distinct from the party paid to take it out, which is the structure a client would choose where it wants the survey to stand on its own.
On how the lots may be combined, the notice records that suppliers can bid for all lots and that the number of suppliers per lot will not be capped. An uncapped multi supplier framework means that winning a place is not the same as winning work, and that the competition a firm has priced for at framework stage is not the competition it will meet at call off stage. Where classifications and locations differ between the lots, the notice carries them in the lot sections rather than at the top.
The national lots sit alongside the two regional pairs rather than replacing them, so a supplier based outside the North East can reach the framework through the national lots without bidding for the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham or Tees Valley lots. The notice does not say how call offs will be allocated between a regional lot and a national lot where both could cover the same property, and no view is offered here.
The notice does not publish a value for any individual lot, does not state how many suppliers are expected on each, and does not name the contracting bodies entitled to use the framework beyond describing them as a variety of public sector settings throughout the United Kingdom. None of those gaps is filled here.