Contract award
Network Rail lets Scotland surfacing framework to one contractor
By Staff Writer | 30-08-2026
Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd has placed its Scotland's Railway Surfacing Framework with one contractor, Complete Paving Requirements (Scotland) Limited of Dumbarton. The contract award notice, identifier 082264-2026, was published on the United Kingdom tender service at 15:07 on 28 August 2026. The contract was signed on 8 August 2026 and the contract record carries a value of 39,000,000 pounds.
That figure needs reading with the notice beside it. The buyer states that the framework carries no committed spend, and that the 39 million pounds is an estimate of the works expected to be awarded through it over its lifespan, including options and headroom. It is a ceiling with a rate card behind it, not a sum the successful contractor has been promised.
A single supplier holds the whole of Scotland. There is no second contractor to fall back on, and the response times in the notice are short.
What the contractor has taken on
The framework covers surfacing works across Scotland's railway, together with platform cope and associated works, minor drainage works connected with surfacing, minor civil engineering works, and the booking of possessions and road closures. The assets named are station platforms, car parks, footpaths and hard standings, and other property associated with the client or with train operating companies. The work is described as inspection, maintenance, repair, and partial or whole renewal.
Three response tiers are set out. An urgent call out must be attended within 24 hours of instruction. Route maintenance must be attended within seven days. Programmed work runs to the date stated in the contract order. For a single contractor holding a national geography, the 24 hour tier is the demanding one: it has to be resourced across the whole route from Stranraer to Thurso without the buyer holding a second supplier in reserve.
Two bids for a national framework
The notice records two bids. That is a thin field for a framework of this reach, and it says something about the number of firms willing to carry a national surfacing obligation on a live railway with possession booking folded into the same package.
The buyer used a negotiated procedure with a prior call for competition, under the utilities regime. Award was made on technical and resource capability weighted at 20, safety at 10, sustainability and social value at 10, and the schedule of rates at 60. A 60 per cent weighting on rates in a framework with no committed spend puts almost all of the commercial risk on the pricing document rather than on the volume, which is the standard shape for call off work but leaves the contractor exposed if the mix of instructions drifts away from the rates it priced.
Eight years if every option is taken
The framework may be extended for a further three years, taken as three separate one year options at Network Rail's sole discretion. The notice records a maximum duration of eight years, expressed as five plus one plus one plus one. Every extension sits with the buyer.
The successful contractor is recorded on the notice as a small or medium sized enterprise, registered in Dumbarton. A framework of this length awarded to an SME is worth watching for the reason any long single supplier arrangement is: the buyer has concentrated a national maintenance obligation, and the eight year horizon depends on options it can decline one year at a time.
The work is classified as railway construction works and the delivery region is recorded as Scotland. The review body named on the notice is the Court of Session in Edinburgh. The procurement reference is SR-PR-25-052 and the award reference is 082264-2026-SCOT/24-25/052-1.