Barking frameworks pull in national and local players

A mix of national and local players have won a place on the last two of three framework packages to be let by the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham - potentially worth £500m in total.

The remaining frameworks - one for educational and public buildings and the other for civil engineering and highways - represent the sum total of the council's construction-based capital programme.

May Gurney, Kier, Neilcott Construction and R Borras are on board for the educational and public buildings deal. This package focuses on upgrading and repairing schools within the borough, but the revamp and repair of offices, community halls and day-care centres is also on the agenda.

The line-up for the engineering and highways deal is: Balfour Beatty Tarmac FM Conway and Bardon Contracting.

Each framework project will be the subject of a mini-tender competition, with a £5m extension to the Northbury School the first scheme to come up for grabs.

As reported in CJ last month (4 July), Apollo, Balfour Beatty, Breyer, Higgins, Makers and United House have been earmarkerd to carry out the council's housing framework.

The three frameworks will be worth £125m-a-year and will run for four years.

A council spokesman said: "We hope that under the frameworks, local young people will be trained up in construction, with smaller companies getting involved in the supply chain.

"Our aim is to build up long-term relationships with our contractors and to get a less adversarial system going."

It is understood that the council initially received around 140 expressions of interest in its project when the deal first surfaced in October 2005.