Colas wins £500m Portsmouth PFI

Highways construction and maintenance specialist, Colas, has been selected as the preferred bidder by Portsmouth City Council for a £500m PFI pathfinder project. 

Should Colas be successful, it will take over all aspects of highways maintenance in the city for the next 25 years, which is believed to be the first project of its type anywhere in the world.

Ensign Highways a company owned by Colas and its parent company Colas SA was chosen after a lengthy bidding process which saw two consortia selected from four in July last year. 

Colas chief executive Peter Hines said: "Success in reaching this final stage is a great achievement and is the result of the hard work and dedication by our staff and our advisers in putting the bid together."

Portsmouth City Council and Ensign Highways will now enter negotiations for the final contract which would enable Colas to assume complete responsibility for "fence-to-fence" highways maintenance throughout the City.

This will include all road surfacing and cleaning, pavements, kerbs, gullies and drainage, lighting, signage, bridges, underpasses, road markings and winter maintenance.

Hines added:  "The priority now is to achieve Financial Close, to mobilise our resources and then to deliver a top quality service to the people of Portsmouth."