Tender

West Whitlawburn puts its lift portfolio out to open competition

By Staff Writer  |  01-09-2026

West Whitlawburn Housing Co-operative Limited has opened an open competition for passenger lift maintenance, servicing and renewal, against an estimated total value of 600,000 pounds excluding value added tax. The contract notice, identifier 082412-2026, was published on the United Kingdom tender service at 14:54 on 31 August 2026. Tenders close at noon on 30 September 2026. The term is 36 months with an option to extend by two further single periods of twelve months, to a maximum of 60 months.

The co-operative is recorded at 57 Belmont Road, Cambuslang, and is classified as a body governed by public law whose main activity is housing and community amenities. The place of performance is given as South Lanarkshire. The requirement is not divided into lots.

Sixty per cent of the score is on cost. On a lift contract that runs day and night for five years, that is a weighting worth reading twice.

The scope

The notice describes a full scope of passenger lift maintenance, servicing, reactive repair and associated renewal works to the landlord's lift portfolio, as set out in the preliminaries to the tender documents. It covers planned preventative maintenance, statutory compliance support, reactive maintenance, emergency call out attendance, lift entrapment response and the associated repair works required to keep the installations safe, reliable and operational.

The contractor must provide a 24 hour, 365 day emergency call out and lift entrapment response service for the whole of the contract. Key performance indicators are attached to the notice, and there is an obligation on the tenderer to name the staff assigned to performing the contract and their professional qualifications. Execution of the service is reserved to a particular profession. Variants will not be accepted.

The evaluation, and the shape it imposes

The award criteria are published: quality at 40 per cent and cost of service at 60 per cent. That split is worth sitting with on a contract of this kind. Lift maintenance is a service where the cheapest annual price and the best outcome are frequently not the same offer, because the cost of the contract to the landlord is not the maintenance fee. It is the maintenance fee plus the repairs that the maintenance did not prevent, plus the callouts, plus the days a lift is out of service in a block where residents have no alternative.

A 60 per cent cost weighting rewards the tenderer who prices the schedule tightly. Whether that produces the lowest whole life cost depends on how the renewal works, the reactive element and the entrapment response are priced and measured, and on whether the key performance indicators bite. The notice confirms that indicators are attached but does not publish them, so what they measure and what happens when they are missed is not established here.

Renewal inside a maintenance contract

The title and the scope both put renewal alongside maintenance. That matters commercially. A maintenance contract is a recurring service at a fairly predictable annual cost. Renewal is capital work on ageing equipment, and it is where the money and the risk sit. Combining them in one appointment gives the landlord a single accountable party for the condition of the portfolio and removes the argument about whether a failure is a maintenance omission or an end of life component.

It also means the contractor pricing the maintenance is the party that will later advise on whether renewal is required. Most landlords manage that with condition surveys and an approval route for capital items. The notice does not describe one, and none is assumed here.

The notice publishes no count of lifts, no ages, no makes, no block addresses and no split between the maintenance element and the renewal element of the 600,000 pounds. It publishes no incumbent. Options are recorded as available and described only as required by the co-operative. The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement, tenders may be submitted electronically through the Scottish procurement portal, and the language is English. Selection criteria for economic and financial standing and for technical and professional ability are stated in the procurement documents rather than on the notice.