May Gurney wins £50m Harrow highways job

May Gurney has secured Harrow Council’s highways maintenance contract for the next five years.

The contract, which is valued up to £50 million, will start in April with an option to extend for a further two years.

Harrow bundled up three asset jobs into the single contract covering maintenance of highways, carriageways, footways, streetlights, gullies, and watercourses.

As part of the contract, May Gurney will also undertake maintenance of highways infrastructure assets belonging to London Underground and Overground, as well as watercourses belonging to the Environment Agency.

The deal brings May Gurney’s current forward order book to £1.5 billion.

May Gurney chief executive, Philip Fellowes-Prynne, said: "We are delighted to be working with Harrow Council on this new contract, which reinforces our position as one of the leading providers of highways maintenance services to local authorities in the UK.

"We continue to focus on providing innovative and cost effective solutions to help local authorities manage their essential infrastructure assets and look forward to building a strong and valuable relationship with Harrow Council.”

Originally, Harrow and Brent Councils had decided to pool their highways maintenance packages in an attempt to benefit from economies of scale, reduce duplication and to drive down cost.

This would have valued the combined maintenance contracts in the region of £120m, but the idea for combining the boroughs' work was eventually dropped and Harrow pressed on alone.

Council procurement chiefs will also now count on the contractor to deliver on promised plans to help reduce the council’s carbon footprint on highways work.