Wokingham Borough Council is advertising two highways and transport service contracts worth up to £276m in total, as part of plans to ‘revolutionise’ the way it provides key services.
The council has significantly transformed its highways and transportation services contracts, cutting five contracts that are due to come to an end in March 2019 down to two.
One contract will cover highway maintenance and construction, including street lighting, structures, bridges and drainage services plus delivery of major infrastructure projects and has an estimated value of £70-£241m.
A second contract with an estimated value of £10-£35m will be for professional services where the council needs specialist expertise and to support peaks of project workload. The two highways contracts will run for seven years with an option to extend to 10 years.
The council said the range in values is wide because both contracts have been made accessible for use by neighbouring Berkshire Authorities.
The new contracts will require potential bidders to not only provide expertise in the relevant fields, but also the ability to provide the innovative ICT solutions required to meet the council’s and residents’ requirements.
The successful contractor must provide improved access to information via web access, including day-to-day services and project activity on Wokingham’s highway network. However consideration must be given to those residents who do not have IT access.
Cllr Keith Baker, executive member for highways and transport, said: ‘Wokingham Borough Council is at the forefront of providing evolutionary highways and transport services and this new partnership will enhance our ability to seek innovative solutions to problems that we know residents have concerns about.
‘We are confident that, after extensive consultation with our residents, local business owners and Councillors, our new contracts and partnerships will enable us to meet our objectives and exceed expectations.’
Contractors have until 5pm on 14 February to declare an interest. Between three and five will be invited to make full bids for each contract. The contracts will be awarded to the successful contractors in mid-October, allowing time for the contractors to set up an appropriate organisation and the formation of the partnership before the new contracts go live on 1 April 2019.
Last month, Wokingham announced that it had been Balfour Beatty to deliver its £124m Major Highways Programme under the £1.5bn Scape Group’s National Civil Engineering and Infrastructure framework, where Balfour is the sole contractor.
