Northumbrian Water has gone out to tender with a major AMP8 sewerage repair and maintenance contract with a potential estimated value of £160 million.

The water company is looking to either appoint a single contractor for the full Northumbrian Water operating region or two separate contractors (one in the North and one in the South of the Northumbrian Water operating region) to deliver reactive sewerage repair and maintenance services.

The scope of the contract includes reactive repairs and maintenance (including alterations and enhancements) of approximately 30,000km of Northumbrian Water's entire sewerage network. This includes reactive attendance to all customer reported issues and subsequent maintenance.

The services will largely be reactive emergency services in response to customer contacts and other short-term work where there is an immediate and repeated adverse impact on customer service or other serviceability measures.

This entails the provision of 24/7/365 emergency call out cover for all customer reported issues which could include:

• Internal, external, highway and other flooding
• Pollution
• Odours
• Blockages
• Collapses
• Dangerous manholes

Northumbrian Water’s in-house Technical Support team will attend the majority of flooding contacts and all reported pollution contacts as well as any others deemed necessary alongside the crew to oversee the resolution of the issue, complete root cause analysis and communicate with the customer.

Investigations undertaken include looksee CCTV, dye testing, locating manholes, cleansing, root cutting and proactive mapping.

Following the initial reactive attendance further remedial or investigation work may be required which could include:

• Further investigation encompassing network tracing, dye testing
• CCTV including probe and mark
• Sewer cleansing
• Ultra high-pressure jet cutting or use of specialist cutting equipment such as Picote, Bladder or robotic cutters
• Root cutting
• Drawdowns
• Rod retrievals

If required sewer repairs are undertaken, these could include:

• Dig down repairs
• Emergency burst rising main repairs
• Trenchless patch or lining repairs
• Pipe bursting
• Minor building over sewer diversions
• New manholes, manhole repairs, manhole cover and frame replacement and/or repairs
• Manhole trap removal
• Minor pipe-bridge & sewer outfall repairs

Other services which could be required under the framework include:

• Large clean ups which may involve removal of contaminated material
• Vegetation clearance
• Landscaping
• Pump hire and overpumping hire and set-up
• Security
• Specialist CSO maintenance services
• Fabrication and installation of specialist ironworks such as penstocks or gattic covers

The appointed contractors(s) will be required to use Northumbrian Water’s apps and systems, together with following processes for updating these and recording asset information. All planning and necessary customer service activity is required to be undertaken by the contractor(s).

The contract is being tendered in the following three Lots:

Lot 1 North of Northumbrian Water's Operating Region (£80,000,000)

Reactive repairs and maintenance (including alterations and enhancements) of approximately 14,000km of the sewerage network

Lot 2 South of Northumbrian Water's Operating Region (£80,000,000)

Reactive repairs and maintenance (including alterations and enhancements) of approximately 16,000km of the sewerage network

Lot 3 Northumbrian Water's Full Operating Region (North & South)  (£160,000,000)

Reactive repairs and maintenance (including alterations and enhancements) of approximately 30,000km of the full sewerage network

Initial contract term for the Framework Agreement is four years with up to four years in further extension options.

Northumbrian Water will either award both Lot 1 and 2, or Lot 3 only which will be assessed based on best value, using an objective mechanism which will be set out in the tender documents.

Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate is 19 July 2024 – click here to access the tender documentation.