Contract award
Devon orders emergency scour works at Shaldon Bridge
By Staff Writer | 30-08-2026
Devon County Council has let short term emergency works at Shaldon Bridge to Teignmouth Maritime Services Ltd at 203,492.07 pounds excluding value added tax, or 244,190.48 pounds including it. The contract details notice, identifier 082083-2026, was published on the United Kingdom tender service at 10:47 on 28 August 2026, the same day the contract was signed.
The notice states that scour has been identified as potentially compromising the integrity of the bridge foundations, including beneath the lifting span pier. The works are described as short term and emergency.
Scour beneath a lifting span pier is the awkward case. The pier carries a moving structure and its bearings, so settlement becomes a question of alignment as well as of strength.
What scour does to a bridge foundation
Scour is the removal of bed material from around a pier or abutment by moving water. In a tidal estuary the flow reverses twice a day and the bed material is worked in both directions, so a hole can deepen around a foundation without anything appearing above the waterline. The condition is found by survey, not by inspection from the deck, which is why the notice couples assessment and protection in one commission.
Where the affected pier carries a lifting span, the consequences run further than load capacity. The span has to close onto its seatings and its bearings within tolerance every time it is lowered. Differential movement at the pier can put the mechanism out of alignment long before the structure is at risk of failure, and the operational disruption arrives first.
Awarded under a framework, in a day
The procurement is recorded as a below threshold award under a framework, run competitively, with the tender reference CP2812-26 and the contract title given as Scour Assessment-Protection Shaldon Bridge (00984). The notice links the award to a parent framework agreement and to lot 4 of it.
That is the route that produces speed. The buyer did not run an open competition; it called off against an arrangement it already had, and the notice was published on the day of signature. For an emergency instruction on a structure with a suspected foundation defect, the framework is doing exactly the job it was set up to do.
Teignmouth Maritime Services Ltd is registered at Unit 20, Dawlish Business Park, Dawlish, and is recorded on the notice as a small or medium sized enterprise. The firm sits a few miles from the structure, on the same estuary. For work in tidal water with restricted access and a tidal window governing every shift, local plant and local knowledge of the bed are worth more than they would be on a dry site.
The programme, and what it says
The contract period runs from 29 September 2026 to 1 March 2027. That is five months for works described as short term and emergency, and the shape of it is worth reading. Signature on 28 August with a start a month later gives time for survey, design of the protection and mobilisation of marine plant. The March finish takes the works through the winter, which on an estuary means the shortest working windows and the worst conditions of the year.
The buyer is Devon County Council, at County Hall in Exeter, and the requirement is classified as construction work. The award and the contract are both recorded as active. The council has published no figure for any permanent scheme that may follow, and the notice describes this commission as short term.