Highways
Stronger bids for highways work, public and private.
Velstrian Bid finds road and maintenance contracts that suit your firm and helps you answer them from your own documents, whether the client is National Highways, a council, a housebuilder, a port or an airport.
Your first 7 days are free. A card is needed to start.
Who asks you to bid
Long contracts, collaborative forms, hard evidence.
Public clients are National Highways and the councils that look after local roads, often buying through regional frameworks. They advertise on official listing sites. Private clients, such as housebuilders, developers, ports and airports, usually send their tender straight to you.
Highways bids are demanding for three reasons. Many schemes use contracts written for working together, so buyers expect a bid that shows how you will deliver, not only a price. Maintenance contracts run for years against published targets, and your promises follow you into delivery. And public buyers now score the good you do locally.
For a team that is also running live works, keeping all of that accurate and consistent across many schemes is the real workload.
How Velstrian Bid helps
From scheme notice to evidenced delivery.
One place to find highways work, write the bid and prove you delivered.
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Find the schemes that fit.
New public contracts arrive every morning, already matched to the work you do and where. A developer sent you a tender for a new junction or estate roads? Upload it.
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Show how you will deliver.
Your answers on programme, risk and performance are drafted from bids you have already written, so they read the same across every scheme. You approve each one.
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Keep the numbers true.
Every pound and percentage has to come from your own records before an answer is shown, so nothing is made up.
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Prove it, year after year.
Long maintenance contracts are judged against published targets. Keep proof of performance in one place for the life of the contract.
For when you need it
The rules and words, explained.
You do not need any of this to start. Open a line when a rule or a word comes up in a tender.
Where public contracts come from
Public buyers must advertise most contracts on official listing sites. Velstrian Bid reads Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland and EU TED every morning at 06:00 UTC and names the site on every notice. Canada, US federal and World Bank notices are available per organisation on request. Private clients rarely advertise, so you upload the tender they send you.
Who buys highways work
National Highways runs the motorways and major A roads for the Department for Transport. Councils and combined authorities let maintenance, surfacing, drainage, lighting and improvement work on local roads, much of it through regional frameworks and alliances, approved lists of contractors that buyers call work off.
NEC contracts
Many public highways schemes use the NEC family of contracts, such as NEC4. They are written for working together and put weight on the programme, early warning of problems, risk and performance, so buyers expect a bid that explains how you will deliver, not only a price.
CPV codes
A CPV code is the standard number a public buyer uses to label what it is buying, for example a code for road surfacing. You can filter the morning feed by CPV code, region and contract value, so only the schemes you can deliver reach your list.
PPN 026 and social value
Social value is the extra good your firm does locally, such as local jobs, apprentices and lower carbon on the scheme. PPN 026, the next edition of the Social Value Model, applies to central government procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027 at 1 million pounds inc VAT or above. Velstrian Bid adds up the figures in code from a curated library of measures aligned to National TOMs conventions (Themes, Outcomes and Measures, a UK way of counting social value).
PPN 017 and AI
PPN 017 is the government guidance on telling a buyer when AI helped write a bid. Every answer drafted with AI carries that note, and a person approves it before it is sent.
Procurement Act 2023, sections 52 and 71
The Procurement Act 2023 sets the rules public buyers follow and has applied since 24 February 2025. Section 52 says a public contract worth more than £5m needs at least three published targets, called key performance indicators. Section 71 says performance against them must be assessed and published. Velstrian Bid checks these duties for you and keeps your proof beside each target over the life of a long contract. The checks guide you and never block you.
Questions
Highways bidding, answered.
Can I use Velstrian Bid for private highways work?
Yes. Housebuilders, developers, ports, airports and retail parks usually send their tender straight to you, for example for a new junction or estate roads. Upload it, and Velstrian Bid drafts the answers from your own documents in the same way as for a public tender.
Which highways buyers and frameworks does Velstrian Bid cover?
Velstrian Bid reads the highways tenders published on the official listing sites, including work from National Highways, council highways teams and the frameworks and alliances used for maintenance, surfacing and improvement schemes. You filter by CPV code (the buyer's standard label for the type of work), region and value.
Do highways contracts use NEC forms?
Many public highways contracts use NEC forms, such as NEC4, which are written for working together and put weight on programme, risk and performance. Velstrian Bid builds the bid around what the buyer asks for and how it will score, and drafts answers from bids you have already written.
How does social value work on road and maintenance tenders?
PPN 026, the next edition of the Social Value Model, applies to central government procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027 at 1 million pounds inc VAT or above. Highways buyers often ask for local jobs, apprentices and lower carbon on the scheme. Velstrian Bid works out the figures in code and drafts the words from your own data.
Can Velstrian Bid help evidence KPIs on maintenance contracts?
Yes. Long maintenance contracts run on published targets, called key performance indicators (KPIs). Velstrian Bid checks the Procurement Act 2023 duties on those targets (sections 52 and 71) and gives you a place to record proof of delivery after you win.
Find the work. Win it. Prove you delivered.
Start with the highways schemes your team should be bidding for this month.