Surrey County Council has started the procurement process for a new high highway maintenance contract which could be worth as much as £25 billion over a 21-year period.
In a contract notice, the council said it wishes to put in place a contract which delivers both its ‘core highways maintenance services and also facilitates an exciting and flexible mechanism for the appointed supplier to identify and implement innovative services and solutions throughout the lifetime of the contract.’
The Council hopes to establish a new way of delivering these services to maximise the potential for success for both itself and the appointed supplier, it said. At present, the majority of the council’s highways maintenance activities are delivered through its existing term maintenance contract which is due to expire in April 2022 and will be replaced with this new approach, said Surrey CC.
According to the notice, the appointed supplier will not only deliver day to day maintenance services, but may also assist with the design/delivery of major schemes and/or design and implement new innovations connected to the operation of the highways network.
Surrey CC said it was looking for a ‘genuine partnership approach’, which it said, ’embodies trust in service delivery, pricing and the innovations referenced above, which would potentially take the relationship to a different level. We are open to exploring how we can do things better to facilitate this, including how we involve other parts of our supply chain (and/or other local authorities) to achieve success for all.’
The contract will be a 10-year initial term plus options to extend for subsequent periods, with the duration of any extensions explored during the negotiation process. The notice said that the contract will have estimated value of £2.5bn made up of £80 million per year for delivery of the ‘core element’ of the services plus additional money which could be made available depending on the level of ‘innovative services;’ introduced.
The full contract notice can be found here: https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:481244-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0
