Birse leader in race for £70m motorway contract

Birse is in the driving seat for a high-profile motorway upgrading deal in the West Country with a potential value topping £70m.

Insiders say that Birse has stolen a march on Edmund Nuttall, its only remaining rival for the improvement scheme on the M4 and M5 in south Gloucestershire and north Somerset.

A source close to the deal suggested: "The fact that Nuttall is out of it may have something to do with the Highways Agency (HA) awarding the firm a big road contract little more than a week ago."

The A421 Great Barford bypass and the A428 Caxton to Hardwick improvement "two-in-one road package" was Nuttall's highest-value early contractor involvement win to date.

But it is understood that the bids from the two rivals for the M4/M5 dealcame in with little to separate them and that the tenders were marked 80:20 in favour of quality over price.

The M4/M5 is currently valued at £30m-plus, but the project could eventually bring Birse a windfall of more than double that.

The HA has indicated that other works packages could be added to the contract.

These schemes, not yet in the roads programme, would be worth £40m-plus.

The possible projects include improvements at the Almondsbury interchange. These involve widening the M4 between junctions 19 and 20 and widening the M5 between junctions 16 and 17.

The current M4/M5 deal, going forward as an early contractor involvement scheme, involves constructing four climbing lanes totalling 14km, adjacent to the M4 and M5 at Hallen Hill, Naish Hill and Tickenham Hill.

May Gurney, Balfour Beatty and Geoffrey Osborne also priced the job.