The Road Safety Markings Association (RSMA) is pleased to announce that following a roundtable discussion with the Department of Infrastructure (DfI) and RSMA members in Northern Ireland, the DfI have revised their Procurement Strategy.
The RSMA was made aware that the DfI had published a procurement strategy that did not include road markings as a specialist trade, but rather included them within wider streetworks when bidding for contracts. This caused concern for members of the Association as they would not be able to bid for work, but rather be a subcontractor on jobs, potentially for main contractors who had no knowledge of road markings. Some other areas of procurement such as fencing were deemed as a specialist trade, but road markings were not.
The RSMA facilitated a roundtable with DfI and members in Northern Ireland, Shannon Roadmarkings, Bridgepoint Roadmarkings and Northern Road Markings to voice concerns about the strategy and give deeper insight into the importance of markings and the need for it to be listed as a specialist trade.
This week the RSMA has received the following correspondence from DfI, confirming that they have listened to the concerns raised and revised the programme accordingly:
“Following our meeting with you and some of your members, the project team took the opportunity to review the overall procurement strategy for the Procurement Enhancement Programme. As part of this review, the team considered the comments raised at our meeting alongside feedback from internal stakeholders.
“This review has led to an opportunity to revise the framework packaging to incorporate a new framework into the programme for Road Markings and Surface Treatments. It is our intention to commence procurement of this framework in early 2027; the latest procurement programme can be found at RAM frameworks – procurement programme.”
Rob Shearing, CEO at the RSMA, said: “We are so glad that we were able to engage with the DfI on an issue so important to our members. The aim of the meeting was to get all involved parties to understand the challenges of the strategy, but this has led to a full review for which we are most grateful.
“The RSMA is constantly working to engage with members and facilitate these types of discussions to ensure that road marking standards are kept to the highest quality to ensure safety on the roads.”
PIC-RSMA
