Highways England has launched a new contract model for the strategic road network that is expected to carry more than £9bn of work.
Launched this week, the first tranche of contracts under the Regional Delivery Partnership will be worth an estimated £8.7bn and will ‘appoint regional delivery integration partners to deliver schemes such as conventional road widening and junction improvements’.
Highways England has invited key stakeholders for a briefing day on the model, which takes place in Birmingham this Friday, where further details will be announced. No information has been released on the specific schemes that will be procured as of yet.
Highways England procurement director, Sharon Cuff said: ‘The new contract model we are launching puts collaboration at the heart of the relationships necessary to deliver the Road Investment Strategy at the scale and pace required, and I urge all of the supply chain to engage.
‘We want to be a client of choice in the sector, and recognise the important role our supply chain play in helping us to shape and innovate within our new procurement models defined under Routes to Market.’
The contract model was developed as part of this wider Routes to Market Programme aimed at creating new procurement vehicles. Highways England said the new model builds on its ‘predecessor’, the collaborative delivery framework (CDF), which reaches its headline value in 2018.
In a statement Highways England said the Regional Delivery Partnership ‘takes on board supply chain feedback and will support the award of work as Highways England transitions from the first Road Investment Strategy into the second from 2020’.
A second procurement phase for the Regional Delivery Partnership will be issued in autumn this year and is expected to be worth around £300m. That tranche of work will support the development of route options using technical advisers.
Then at the end of the year a new and separate model will be launched covering the delivery of the smart motorways programme.
Highways England will continue to engage with the supply chain in developing this new model to deliver smart motorways throughout 2018.
