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Cameron flags 100 road schemes as HA reveals £5bn delivery frameworks plan

Faster, cheaper safer delivery is targeted by the Agency through collaborative working across the supply chain.

Highways Agency

A new level of innovation and collaboration across the supply chain to reduce the cost of work on the nation’s trunk roads and minimise the impact of work on drivers and communities is at he heart of the Highways Agency’s new Collaborative Delivery Frameworks announced today.

The 26 winning consultants and contractors across four lots covering design and construction delivery (see list below) will, said Agency chief executive Graham Dalton, be challenged to “look afresh” at the way work is delivered over eh next five years.

100 ROAD SCHEMES PROMISED

Prime Minister David Cameron will put some flesh on the Government’s promised £24bn of roads investment up to 2021 today. Speaking at the CBI annual conference later he will highlight some of 100 schemes in the pipeline to upgrade Britain’s road network, expected to be formally revealed in the Autumn Statement in three weeks time. Schemes include action to improve the A303 to the South West, A1 north of Newcastle to Scotland and the the A1 Newcastle-Gateshead western bypass, trans Pennine roads in the north, the A47 in the east of England and A27 on the south coast.

“These are partners that we have chosen to work with and who have chosen to work with us,” said Dalton, highlighting that for the new projects and programmes of work it would not just be the client instructing the supply chain what to do.

“Some we have worked with before, some we haven’t. We will be looking to them for imaginative ideas around planning the work and delivering it,” he said. “We have a huge order book of work but that does not mean it is easy – the challenge is around efficiency. We need to be innovative and our suppliers need to be innovative.”

However, Dalton said that, while they had target figures in mind for reducing cost, he was not going make this public but would be working “project by project” to dive efficiency (see interview).

The CDF is the biggest framework ever let by the Agency and sets the tone for a new agenda of greater efficiency and customer focus as the organisation moves from a government agency to becoming a government owned strategic highways company with fiver year budgets starting in April next year.

The Agency described the framework award as the next step in the delivery of its £24bn investment in England’s major roads in this parliament and the next and represents “the government’s firm commitment to investing in infrastructure to boost the economy”.

The work will begin to flow from the new framework almost immediately with programmes on the A14 improvement and on the first tranche of managed motorway contracts on the M1, M5 and M6 expected to be let this month.

David Poole, Highways Agency Commercial and Procurement Director said that it had worked hard to ensure that new firms had been brought onto the framework alongside other existing players

He also stressed that although the lots were divided by value, it would eventually be possible for smaller firms to bid for larger works as the frameworks progress.

“The way the Agency is doing business is evolving to meet the historic levels of investment we will be delivering and this framework is a key part of making this more efficient and collaborative,’ he said “This framework has also been designed to support the industry and encourage small and medium sized businesses to grow throughout the contract.”1

Collaborative Delivery Framework award – list of companies

Lot 1 - Professional design and engineering services

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Atkins Limited

CH2M HILL United Kingdom

Hyder Consulting (UK) Limited

Jacobs U.K. Limited 

Mott MacDonald Limited/Grontmij Limited JV

Mouchel Ltd

Ove Arup & Partners Ltd

URS Infrastructure and Environment (UK) Ltd

WSP Civils Limited/Parsons Brinkerhoff JV

 

Lot 2 - Medium value construction work (scheme values up to £25m, may be extended to £50m)

EM Highway Services Limited

Geoffrey Osborne Limited

Interserve Construction Ltd

John Graham Construction Ltd

VolkerFitzpatrick Ltd

 

Lot 3a - High value construction work (scheme values between £25m and £100m, may be extended to £300m)

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Galliford Try Infrastructure Limited

HOCHTIEF (UK) Construction Limited

John Sisk & Son Ltd/Lagan Construction Group Ltd JV 

Kier Infrastructure & Overseas Limited 

VINCI Construction UK Ltd (trading as Taylor Woodrow) / Vinci Construction Grands Projects JV

 

Lot 3b - High value construction work (scheme values between £100m and £450m)

Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd

BAM Nuttall Ltd / Morgan Sindall Plc JV

Carillion Construction Ltd

Costain Limited

Skanska Construction UK Ltd

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.