The new contracts are in Cumbria/north Lancashire and the northeast, and start on 1st April 2017 as part of Highways England’s new delivery arrangements.
Two maintenance and response contracts, together expected to be worth up to £262m and running for up to 15 years, have been awarded to Kier Highways in Cumbria (Area 13) and CH2M Costain Joint Venture in the northeast (Area 14).
Kier's Area 13 contract is worth £142.2m and CH2M Costain's contract for Area 14 is worth £120.6m.
The contractors will deliver routine highway maintenance services, repairs to defects, emergency incident response and severe weather services on motorways and trunk roads.
Under the new asset delivery contracts, Highways England will directly manage both routine maintenance and the delivery of capital renewal and improvement schemes. This marks a change from previous way of working, bringing key functions in-house and taking greater control of the road network.
In addition, two new five-year design services contracts, with an expected combined value of more than £38m, have been awarded to Amey OW Ltd, for both the Cumbria/north Lancashire, and the northeast areas. Amey's duties will include preparing technical designs and undertaking supporting work for capital projects from an initial scheme feasibility phase through to the as-built phase. This also runs from 1st April 2017.
The first of these types of asset delivery contracts, replacing managing agent contracts, began operation in the East Midlands (Area 7) in July 2016, where Amey is the maintenance contractor and Kier (Mouchel) has the design services contract.
Highways England procurement director David Poole said: “We are delighted to welcome Kier Highways Ltd, CH2M Costain Joint Venture and Amey OW to our asset delivery supply chain community in Cumbria and north Lancashire and the northeast. The awarding of these four new contracts builds on the new way of working already taking place in the East Midlands and is a real change in the way we have previously operated the network. These contracts demonstrate our commitment to increasing capability and understanding within Highways England and bringing Highways England closer to our customers.
“Collaboration with our supply chain is key to our new way of working and we are looking forward to establishing a successful, long-term relationship with the appointed contractors.”
Further contracts will be awarded for specialist goods and services in the coming months and suppliers will be appointed to the new framework for delivering construction works in late January.
The asset delivery maintenance and response, and design services contracts will commence in these areas when the current managing agent contracts with A-one+ in the northeast and Kier in Cumbria/north Lancashire come to an end.
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