Press Release

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, today announces it has been awarded a seven year, £245 million highways maintenance contract for Coventry City Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council. There is an option to extend the contract for a further three years.

Balfour Beatty Living Places will work in partnership with the three Councils. This is a unique collaborative arrangement in the local authority highways market, which enables the provision of a single source service provider across the three areas. This results in better value for money, improved service resilience and flexibility in services.

Balfour Beatty has delivered Highways maintenance services across Warwickshire over the last five years. This new award recognises the value derived from the Group’s excellent service and the greatly improved IT systems provided. Balfour Beatty is committed to continuing to enhance the value delivered through further efficiencies including improved real-time information.

Balfour Beatty’s 120 strong directly employed workforce, that will include 30 local apprenticeships and 10 graduate placements, will deliver a variety of services to over 5000km of roads, winter maintenance across 2000km of roads and maintenance of over 55,000 street lights.

Leo Quinn, Balfour Beatty Group Chief Executive said “We build long-term relationships with local authorities that add real value to communities. With a clear focus on the outcomes that matter to communities, we are helping local authorities to deliver better value for money. This contract award is a real endorsement of the excellent service we have provided across Warwickshire since 2011 and gives us the opportunity to build upon our successes.”

Councillor Peter Butlin, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Transport and Planning, said: “The highways maintenance contract supplies one of our principal services and its performance is very important to residents and businesses. By approving a highways contract as a three-way partnership, we are able to provide improved value for money to the taxpayer as well as better service resilience and flexibility. As neighbours, it makes perfect logic for Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull to link up and provide a more efficient service through cooperative working.”

Councillor Philip Johnson, Warwickshire County Council’s Chair of Communities Overview & Scrutiny Committee, said: “This partnership shows how, by working together, local authorities can realise the best possible services for their residents and at the same time, bring in savings to the council taxpayer.”

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.”

Councillor Rachel Lancaster, Cabinet Member for Public services at Coventry City Council, said: “The ability to work closely with our partners on contracts such as these ensures we get the very best deal possible for council tax payers and road users in the city. Although we do most of our maintenance work with our own highways teams, having the expertise of Balfour Beatty to call on for larger or more specialist programmes means that whatever needs undertaking, we are sure to get the highest quality of work done within our budgets and on time.”

ENDS

Media enquiries to:

Antonia Walton
Balfour Beatty
T: +44 (0) 207 9632267
E: Antonia.walton@balfourbeatty.com
www.balfourbeatty.com | follow us @balfourbeatty

Notes to editors:

Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group. With 36,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.

Our main geographies are the UK, US, Middle East and South East Asia. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics’ Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong’s first Zero Carbon building, the world’s biggest shopping mall in Dubai, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Balfour Beatty Living Places portfolio of local authorities’ work includes contracts covering Cambridgeshire, Coventry, Derby, Herefordshire, Leicester, Northamptonshire, North Somerset, Rochdale, Southampton, South Tyneside, Sunderland, Warwickshire, West Sussex and Wokingham.

Balfour Beatty Living Places works in partnership with Local Authorities to consult, finance, design, build and manage the essential infrastructure that local communities and national economies need to prosper and grow.

Bringing local authorities, local communities, central government, and the private sector together, it creates safe, sustainable, flexible and dynamic public spaces geared to community need, economic growth and personal well-being as well as being environmentally sustainable.