Balfour Beatty start work on highways maintenance in Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire

Balfour Beatty has started work on a seven year highways maintenance contract for Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council.

The contract was awarded to Balfour Beatty in February 2016 and has the option to extend for a further three years.

A spokesperson from SMBC said “Working in partnership with the three Councils, this relationship represents a unique and collaborative arrangement within the local authority highways market, enabling the provision of a single source service provider across the three areas.

“This results in better value for money, improved resilience and flexibility in our approach to Highway maintenance.

“While Balfour Beatty has delivered Highways maintenance services across the three council areas over the last five years, this new contract recognises the value derived during that time from the Group’s excellent service and the greatly improved IT systems provided.”

Balfour Beatty will employ a 120-strong directly employed workforce, including 30 local apprenticeships and ten graduate placements over the course of the contract.

Using state-of-the-art technology, the team will deliver a variety of services in partnership with the three Councils, covering over 5,000km of roads, winter maintenance across 2,000km of roads and maintenance of over 55,000 street lights.

Councillor Ted Richards, Solihull Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and Highways, said: “I’m pleased that we will see the benefits of the three local authorities working together with Balfour Beatty to deliver on our shared objectives, provide strong management of our collective assets and a more efficient service for our residents.”

Picture: Representatives from Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire Councils.