Five in fast lane for Notts A453 upgrade

The Highways Agency (HA) will call five contractors to a presentation meeting next week relating to a £36m deal up for grabs around Nottingham.

The HA has chosen the quintet to work up bids for upgrading a stretch of the A453 to dual
carriageway standard between junction 24 of the M1 to the A52 at Nottingham.

The contest for the early contractor involvement scheme will be between Carillion, Laing O’Rourke, Mowlem, Nuttall and Skanska.

Costain and a joint venture between Sir Robert McAlpine and Geoffrey Osborne were among those failing to make the final cut.

One industry insider said: “Costain was on a roll in terms of winning road contracts, so maybe the HA thought the firm already had enough on its plate and it was time to ring the changes.”

He continued: “On the other hand, Carillion has found it difficult recently even to get on the shortlists for road projects, possibly due to its low Capability Assessment Toolkit scores.

“But maybe its appearance on the A453 bid list signals a change of fortunes for the firm.”

The shortlisted five will attend a presentation meeting on 1 September, which, among other issues, will go into a detailed explanation of the scheme’s background and requirements.

The contractors will also probably be able to pick up the tender paperwork at the presentation and be given a deadline for returning bids.

It is expected that the winner of the A453 scheme, which has a total budget of almost £90m allocated to it, will emerge either at the back end of this year or early in 2006.

The construction work is expected to take around 30 months to complete.

A source said: “There is nothing particularly complicated or unusual about the project, but the widening is desperately needed to relieve traffic congestion.”