Cheshire West and Chester Council has appointed Colas Ltd as its ‘highways delivery partner’, in a deal worth up to £300m over a possible 15 years.
From April next year, Colas will be responsible for the maintenance of 2,300km of highways, as well as structures such as the historic Chester City Walls, traffic signals, street lighting, gulley cleansing, drainage, street furniture, road studs and markings, professional services and vehicle restraint systems.
The council said that it spends up to £20m on these services annually. The contract is initially for seven years, with two possible extensions of four years each, taking the maximum term to 15 years.
Colas said the new delivery partner contract will take a highly collaborative approach, with the two organisations working closely together to deliver a quality service for the local communities.
Colas will be supported on the contract by Waterman, who will deliver the professional services, and Bouygues Energies & Services, who will undertake the street lighting.
David Ogden, Colas executive director responsible for asset and maintenance solutions, said: ‘The entire team at Colas are thrilled to be working in a collaborative approach across the contract with Cheshire West and Chester Council, in particular with the creation of a new Social Value Steering Group that will see us work jointly with the council and local stakeholders to create a strategy and address emerging challenges, which will support local people and create opportunities for disadvantaged communities.’
The council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for environment, highways and strategic transport, Karen Shore, said: ‘Teams in our Transport and Highways directorate have been working hard to ensure the procurement process and the development of the overall contract for these key services was carried out thoroughly and effectively, taking into account factors that are influencing the market for these services at the current time.
‘We would very much like to thank our current contractor, Ringway, for their hard work since 2012, working alongside us to look after our highways assets and keep our residents and visitors safe.’
Colas said it will provide improvements to local highways depots early in 2023, including upgrades to the welfare facilities for staff, new electric vehicle charging points. In the main depot, a new local recycling facility will be established that will support the development of a circular economy as well as enabling specialist road recycling.
The depot will be carbon neutral by 2025.
Colas added that it will deliver a fleet solution that is 100% alternative fuel and ultra low emission vehicles, drawing on experience from its National Highways Area 9 contract, which began in July.
