HA set to trial CM techniques

Specialist contractors could snatch millions of pounds of work from main contractors if a Highways Agency pilot scheme using construction management proves successful.

The agency is planning to bundle 25 roadwork schemes worth £10 million into a number of construction management framework contracts which will be let to specialist contractors for 12 months from next April.

The pilot scheme will straddle maintenance areas 8 and 11. The areas' managing agents, WS Atkins and Thorburn Colquhhoun, will act as construction managers for the pilot scheme.

If the pilot scheme proves successful, the agency will consider introducing framework packages and construction management on all its roadworks over £1 million in value.

Joe Burns, group manager of the Highways Agency's roads procurement policy, said: "The pilot scheme will give smaller specialist contractors the opportunity to work more closely with the client and clearly, if the scheme is a success, construction management will be extended along with a range of other procurement routes which the Highways Agency is looking at under its procurement strategy."

He said the use of framework specialist contractors could see main contractors losing work, but added that they could also bid for the work.

The 25 road schemes in the pilot project will be split into five or six packages which will be shared equally between three framework contractors.

David York, the Highways Agency's project services director, said the agency would be "looking for companies with the right management skills, as well as technical and financial competence and giving these issues a very high priority in our quality and price assessment. In particular we will be looking for companies which have taken on-board the five key drivers for change, identified in Sir John Egan's Rethinking Construction report."

Information packs on the pilot will be issued in January.