Navigating HVM Procurement Routes
The moment a product is expected to stop a moving vehicle, its route to site becomes a technical decision as much as a commercial one, and getting it wrong can mean a rejected building control sign-off, an insurer who won't cover the scheme, or worse, a barrier that simply doesn't perform when it's needed.
The trouble is that HVM rarely moves through one clean procurement channel. A local authority regeneration scheme, a shopping centre refurbishment and a stadium perimeter upgrade can all end up buying the same crash-rated bollard, yet each will travel through a completely different route to get there, with different people making the specification decision at different points. This guide walks through those routes, who controls them, and what to check at each stage, whether you're buying blocks, bollards or planters.
Why the Route Matters as Much as the Product
With standard street furniture, the procurement route mostly affects price and lead time. With HVM, it affects whether the product that arrives on site is even the right one. A bollard that's been through rigorous impact testing to PAS 68 is not interchangeable with a decorative bollard that merely looks similar, and the further a purchase travels from the person who understands that distinction, the higher the risk that the wrong item gets ordered.
This is why HVM procurement tends to cluster around a handful of distinct routes, each suited to a different stage of a project and a different type of buyer.
Route One: The Specifier-Led Route
A security consultant, architect or landscape architect carries out a threat assessment, often formalised as a Vehicle Dynamics Assessment (VDA), which looks at how a hostile vehicle could realistically approach a site, at what speed, and with what mass. From that assessment comes a performance specification: the vehicle class the barrier must stop, the impact angle, and any debris or penetration limits.
Crucially, the specifier writes performance criteria into the tender documents rather than naming a specific product, which keeps the procurement competitive while still holding the line on standards. Our role at this stage is largely advisory: we'll work through the VDA with the specifier, talk through how our PAS 68-tested blocks, bollards and planters meet the stated vehicle class and speed rating, and help translate a technical requirement into a workable design that doesn't fight the wider public realm scheme.
The one thing to watch here is the standards transition. ISO 22343-1 has now replaced PAS 68 and IWA 14-1 as the recognised testing methodology, and from March 2024 the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) will only add newly tested products to its Catalogue of Security Equipment if they've been tested to ISO 22343. That doesn't invalidate products tested to PAS 68 or IWA 14-1 before that date; those results still stand and the products remain perfectly legitimate to specify.
Route Two: Public Sector Frameworks
Local authorities, NHS trusts, transport bodies and other public sector organisations rarely go out to the open market for a single scheme. Instead, they buy through frameworks, and since 24 February 2025 those frameworks have operated under the Procurement Act 2023 rather than the old Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The practical effect for anyone buying HVM this way is a slightly different set of rules around how a contracting authority can call off a contract, with both closed frameworks (a fixed supplier list) and the newer open framework model now available, plus more flexibility in how mini-competitions are run.
Some organisations run outdoor furniture frameworks that public bodies can call off against directly, without running a full tender for every scheme. Contracts awarded before February 2025 continue to run under the old PCR 2015 rules until they expire, so it's not unusual to see both regimes operating side by side for the next few years, particularly on multi-year frameworks agreed before the transition.
Where this gets tricky for HVM specifically is that many general street furniture frameworks weren't originally built with counter-terrorism products in mind. A framework built around benches, bins and cycle stands may not have the technical evaluation criteria needed to assess a vehicle security barrier properly, so it's worth checking whether a given framework has a dedicated security or HVM lot, or whether the authority intends to run a separate mini-competition or direct award specifically for the perimeter security package.
If you're a local authority officer working this out, our advice is always to loop in whoever wrote the original threat assessment before a framework call-off goes out, so the performance specification travels with the order rather than getting diluted into a generic furniture spec.
Route Three: Main Contractor and Design-and-Build Procurement
On design-and-build contracts, which now dominate most public realm and infrastructure schemes, HVM is very often specified by a consultant early in the design but then physically procured by the main contractor once they're appointed. This is a route where the biggest risk isn't a poor specification, it's specification drift during value engineering.
A contractor working to a fixed budget will sometimes look for savings across the whole scheme, and street furniture and perimeter security items can get bundled together as if they're interchangeable. A crash-rated planter and a standard planter of similar dimensions might look like a straightforward like-for-like substitution on a cost plan, but they are entirely different products with entirely different testing, foundations and installation requirements. Reputable contractors know this and will come back to the original specification before making a change, but it's worth building a line into the contract documents that any substitution of HVM products requires sign-off from the original specifier or security consultant, not just the client's quantity surveyor.
For subcontracted packages, we work directly with main and principal contractors to provide technical submittals, installation drawings and, where needed, on-site guidance to make sure foundation depths and fixing details match what was tested, since a barrier's crash rating is only valid for the exact foundation configuration it was tested against.
Route Four: Direct-to-Manufacturer and Bespoke Consultancy
Some projects, particularly those with unusual site constraints, listed building considerations, or a genuinely high threat level, skip intermediary procurement altogether and come straight to the manufacturer. This is the route for anything bespoke: a shallow-mount planter needed because of buried services, a block finished to match a specific stone or render, or a barrier designed around a curved boundary that off-the-shelf products can't accommodate.
This route tends to involve the most technical back-and-forth, because a bespoke HVM product still has to be tested, or engineered from a tested base design, to hold its rating. It's the route we're most heavily involved in ourselves, working through a site's specific approach angles and speeds with the client's security consultant and adapting a proven design rather than starting from a blank sheet, which keeps both the timeline and the testing burden realistic.
Bringing It Together: Blocks, Bollards and Planters
The route a project takes often depends on which of these three product types is being specified, since each carries a slightly different risk profile.
Counter terror blocks tend to move through the specifier-led or contractor route, since they're usually part of a defined perimeter strategy rather than a standalone purchase, and their weight and footprint mean installation detail has to be agreed before ordering. Bollards see the widest spread across every route in this guide, from framework call-offs on local authority high street schemes through to bespoke consultancy projects at higher-threat sites, which is exactly why checking the rating on a bollard order matters more than for almost any other product. Planters occupy an interesting middle ground: they're frequently chosen because they double as landscaping, which means they can slip into general street furniture frameworks or merchant orders more easily than a visibly industrial block or bollard, so it's worth being particularly careful that a security planter's rating and foundation requirement have travelled with it through whichever route it's bought on.
A Few Questions Worth Asking, Whatever the Route
Before any HVM order goes through, however it's being procured, it's worth confirming the vehicle class and impact speed the product is rated to, whether that rating was achieved under a ISO 22343, PAS 68 or IWA 14-1 test, what foundation depth and ground conditions the test was based on, and whether the person signing off the order has sight of the original threat assessment or VDA.
None of that changes depending on whether the buyer is a security consultant, a contractor's procurement team, a council officer working from a framework, or a facilities manager placing an order through a merchant account. What changes is how many steps that information must travel through before it reaches the person placing the order, and the further it travels, the more likely something gets lost.
With Martyn's Law now moving through its commencement stages and enhanced duty premises expected to have physical security measures in place well before enforcement lands, more organisations than ever are working through this for the first time. Whichever route your project takes, we'd always rather have the conversation early, while the specification is still being written, than after a product has already landed on site.
If you're working through a procurement route for an upcoming scheme and want a second opinion on a specification, get in touch with our technical team, we're happy to talk it through against the standards and the route you're working with.