Essex County Council starts £3bn highways contract procurement

ESSEX County Council has said the process to decide who will be awarded a contract worth as much as £3bn to look after the maintenance of its major road network will reflect challenges around local government reorganisation reports Local Democracy Reporter.

The local authority is looking to replace the existing contract, currently held by Ringway Jacobs, when it expires on March 31 2027. But Essex County Council is likely only to be in existence for just a year of the seven year contract.

The council is scheduled to fold as part of wider local government reorganisation in 2028. Essex County Council has said it is “currently designing a new highways contract to reflect current and future challenges and opportunities”.

The new contract, ending on March 31, 2034 is valued at £3bn inclusive of VAT, will be responsible for the maintenance and improvement of more than  5,000 miles of highway, 4,000 miles of footway and over a quarter of a million streetlights.

A statement as part of a pipeline notice sets out what will be expected said: “The contractor will undertake reactive and planned maintenance, that delivers best value with the resources available, across all of Essex County Council’s highway network and on all highway assets.

“This will include design and delivery of improvement schemes. The contractor will deliver the service in line with the client’s corporate policies and strategic plans, and will support communities and the local economy through network maintenance and improvement to meet the client’s growth agenda and related plans and strategies.

Essex restaurants

“The contractor will be expected to proactively embrace and implement best practice, innovations and new technologies enabling the service to continually improve.”

Business cases are currently being prepared setting out arguments for the number of unitary authorities – possibly between two and five – that will look after services in the whole of greater Essex. The single-tier system which will be responsible for all local government service is set to replace the current two tier system of a county council, 12 districts and the two councils of Southend and Thurrock.

Essex restaurants

A spokesperson for Essex County Council said: “We are currently designing a new highways contract to reflect current and future challenges and opportunities for the highways service in Essex. We are scoping out across the council what the impact of devolution and local government reorganisation will be on services as part of this work.”