Eight compete for £50m Midlands highways job

Eight groups are on the starting grid for at least £50m-worth of highways maintenance work in the Midlands.

The Highways Agency (HA) deal is flying under the banner of Midlands Framework 3 and the line-up includes heavyweight names in the maintenance business.

Three of the hopefuls have teamed up to pitch for the deal. Birse is in tandem with Balfour Beatty; Lafarge has got into bed with May Gurney; and Osborne is in cahoots with Aggregate Industries.

The other five bidders are lone raiders. These are: Hanson Construction Projects; Carillion; Tarmac; Alfred McAlpine; and Interserve.

It is expected that winners will begin to emerge from the pack around October time, with work on site starting either at the back end of this year, or the beginning of next.

A project source said: "The HA will certainly go for more than one firm to carry out all this work. But it's not yet clear how many will make the grade."

The job centres on the HA's Managing Agent Contractor (MAC) Areas 7 (West Midlands) and 11 (East Midlands). The initial contract will run until June 2010, but there is the possibility of a one-year extension.

The maximum value of packages of work within the deal are expected to be in the order of £8m and the tasks will include structural work, surfacing and general roadworks.

The HA also aims to make its appointed contractors available to other agencies such as local authorities and UK central government departments.