Carillion faces competition in race for HA's Area 8 MAC

Five firms will pick up the tender paperwork later this month for a Highways Agency (HA) road maintenance deal worth up to £217m.

Trying to topple the present incumbent of the Area 8 managing agent/contractor (MAC) project will be: A1 Plus (Costain/Colas/Halcrow) Atkins Accord/Mouchel Parkman and AMScott (Alfred McAlpine/Scott Wilson). The present holder of the scheme, also pitching in an effort to win a second term of office, is Carillion-URS.

Area 8 was the first of the HA's maintenance schemes to come under the MAC banner and replaced the HA's previous format, which was to have separate roles for contractors and managing agents. The Carillion-URS team won the ground-breaking scheme in May 2001.

The HA is expected to pick its preferred team for the new contract early next year, with work on site getting underway in September 2008.

The new scheme will be worth between £26m to £31m a year and will run for a minimum of five years, but there will be the option to extend the deal by a further two years.

A source said: "As usual, when guaranteed work for years to come is the prize, competition among the five groups will be in the no-holds-barred category."

The Area 8 project covers 1,100km of motorways and trunk roads in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

The contract includes routine and cyclic maintenance in packages of work up to £5m and the delivery of capital projects up to £500,000.