17 February 2015

Costain has won the right to bid on a new medium-term multi-billion pound roads delivery programme.

The Group has secured a place on Lot 3B of the Highways Agency (soon to become Highways England) Collaborative Delivery Framework.

Factors on which the HA evaluated potential framework members included quality, ‘strategic alignment’ (StART) and behavioural assessments.

“It’s a zero-value framework, which means you don’t immediately win work, but you get the opportunity to bid for it,” said Costain’s Highways Programme Director, Tony Scutt.

The framework is destined to run for four years with the possibility of an extension and is likely to encompass work worth some £5 billion over that period.

The framework is divided into four lots, each equating to a maximum financial value that framework members are deemed capable of taking on. Lot 3B, the highest-value lot, covers projects worth between £100-£450 million. Costain is one of five companies in this lot.

The framework covers a total of 22 companies and the HA requires suppliers to share best practice. Companies such as Costain can earn an above-market rate of return for delivering exceptional performance improvements in areas such as health and safety, sustainability, quality, time and cost over the life of the framework.

Costain is in the process of putting forward its first tender for the framework, to upgrade the A14 trunk road between Cambridge and Huntingdon. The A14 is a strategic road that connects up with the Felixstowe container port and is notoriously busy.

Various measures will be undertaken to improve capacity of the road – a combination of on-line widenings and, a section of completely new-build south of Huntingdon.

Total value of work on the A14 is around £1.4 billion, with around £1 billion of that in construction works.

The HA has opened up three programmes of work to bidders – ‘smart motorways’, a ‘junctions, widening and bypass programme’ and a ‘complex build’ programme.

 

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