£2.2bn Birmingham highways PFI winner to be named next month

A preferred bidder for Birmingham City Council’s long delayed £2.2bn highways maintenance PFI scheme will be revealed next month, ContractJournal.com has learnt.

Amey and Birmingham Street Services, a consortium of Laing O’Rourke and Vinci were shortlisted for the scheme in 2005, along with Balfour Beatty and a joint venture of W.S. Atkins and EDF. After numerous delays and the withdrawal of Balfour Beatty and W.S. Atkins/EDF, a preferred bidder was set to be announced last December. However the credit crisis prompted the council to review the scheme’s costs and to ask bidders to prove they could raise the necessary finances.

Five months on Birmingham Council’s PFI Highways maintenance bid team are finally preparing to recommend one of two shortlisted bidders for its highways maintenance PFI scheme.

A council source told ContractJournal.com: “We are about to put forward a recommendation for preferred bidder which the council’s cabinet will consider when it meets early next month. The preferred bidder will be announced shortly after that.”

A council spokesman said the final bids were being considered and a preferred bidder would be announced “sometime soon”.

The Birmingham Highways PFI has had a troubled procurement. Launched in 2004, work was planned to start in October 2006. However the scheme suffered a number of setbacks. In 2006 it was shelved for months by the incoming Conservative council. It was also delayed in 2007 whilst the council sought additional public funding to meet the rising costs of the project.