Kier Transportation has secured a £120 million extension for Interim Highways Services in order to keep maintaining Birmingham’s roads, as the city continues to deal with the consequences of its stalled highways PFI, says Construction Enquirer.

Birmingham City Council has directly awarded the contractor a new two-year interim deal from 1 August 2026, with an option to extend it by a further nine months until April 2029.

The move keeps Kier in charge of the city’s highways network while the council works towards a long-term replacement for one of the UK’s biggest PFI road maintenance contracts.

Kier has maintained Birmingham’s highways since April 2020 after stepping in following the collapse of Amey’s troubled £2.7bn PFI deal.

The contractor was later selected as preferred bidder for a restructured long-term contract worth around £600 million, but the project stalled when the Department for Transport decided to withdraw support for continued PFI funding.

Although Birmingham City Council successfully overturned that decision through Judicial Review in 2024, a permanent funding solution has yet to be agreed.

The council said the extension was needed to guarantee uninterrupted highway maintenance while the council procures a long-term replacement.

According to the Government’s Find a Tender service “the Authority considers that the direct award [to Kier] is strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency to ensure continuity of a critical public service while it undertakes the steps required to develop and procure a longer-term solution and the continued safety of the public in accordance with the Authority’s statutory duties. The Authority has determined that it would not be possible to run a competitive procurement process to procure a supplier which could ensure such continuity of service in the timeframes available.”

(Picture: Stankoo7)