Kent County Council has invited bids on a new highway maintenance term contract (HTMC) worth up to £2bn over a possible 21 years, following controversy over previous extensions to its existing deal.
A contract notice published on Monday states that the council wants to enter into the new contract by November 2025 to allow sufficient time for implementation and to ensure service continuity from the expiry of the existing contract on 30 April 2026.
The initial term of the new contract is expected to be 14 years, plus a six-month mobilisation period during which Task Orders will be issued, with an option to extend the deal up to a maximum aggregate of seven years.
The contract notice gives the estimated total value of the new contract as £2bn.
In September 2023 the highway authority issued a pre-procurement notice for a new contract to run from May 2026 to Apr 2036 and valued at that time at up to £1bn.
The contract notice states that the council then held three rounds of market engagement with suppliers in January, June, and August 2024, ‘to obtain market input and confirm current thinking’.
The launch of the procurement last September followed a decision the previous month by cabinet member for highways and transport Neil Baker to award Amey a 32-month extension to its contract just days it expired.
That decision, which followed previous extensions, was criticised by councillors as an unacceptable 'last-minute approach to a critical service'.
A written decision from Mr Baker published last week authorises the procurement and contract award of a ‘zero value’ highways term maintenance contract with authority delegated to the council’s corporate director of growth, environment and transport, Simon Jones, ‘to take relevant actions to facilitate the required procurement activity’.
The decision notice gives a replacement value of £10.2bn for the authority’s 5,400-mile road network.
It states baldly: ‘The current HTMC contract cannot be extended any further.’
