Contestants hit the road for £560m maintenance deal

Five rivals are set to pick up the tender paperwork for a highways maintenance deal worth up to £560m.

For its Area 9 managing agent/contractor (MAC) project, the Highways Agency (HA) has lined up InterRoute (Balfour Beatty/Birse); Interserve/Atkins A1 Plus (Costain/Colas/Halcrow); AccordMP (which features consultant Mouchel); and solo bidder Amey.

Amey/Mouchel has been tackling the Area 9 scheme under a five-year contract with the HA.

A source said: "This time round, Mouchel is in tandem with Accord and not with Amey and is in the strange position of once again bidding against its former partner - it has already done so successfully on MAC Areas 1 and 3.

"Mouchel switched horses because both firms wanted to go their own ways.

"And there will be no-holds-barred on either side - these MAC schemes are huge and represent years of guaranteed work."

The Enterprise group has taken over Accord and Accord MP is in the process of changing its name to EnterpriseMouchel.

The HA is expected to award the new contract late this year. Amey/Mouchel's present contract expires on 30 June 2009.

The Area 9 project weighs in at between £70m and £80m a year and will initially run for five years.

But depending on performance, whoever wins the race for the new contract will have the opportunity to take a two-year extension.

The scheme takes in routine and cyclic road and bridge maintenance works, including winter maintenance and capital projects up to £500,000.

Area 9 centres on the Midlands and includes the heavily congested Midland Link motorway, plus motorways and A-roads in eight counties, three metropolitan boroughs and the city of Birmingham.