Cheshire West and Chester Council’s new highways contractor appointed

Cheshire West and Chester Council has appointed a new partner for its highways services following a procurement process.

Colas Limited will become the new highways term maintenance contractor from 1 April 2023.

The new contractor will be responsible for the maintenance of 2,300km of public highways as well as structures including Chester’s historic City Walls, plus traffic signals, street lighting, gulley cleansing, drainage, street furniture, road studs and markings.

The comprehensive tender process to engage a term maintenance contractor included them responding to requirements around quality of materials and repairs, ensuring appropriate data and intelligence is gathered to deliver real innovation in the way the Council delivers services in the future, and a strong customer focus to ensure fault reports and enquiries are responded to in an appropriate and timely manner.

In the tender, bidders were also required to set out how they would respond to the climate emergency and demonstrate commitments to Social Value

Each year the Council spends up to £20 million on these services, making the highways contract one of its largest.

The initial contract term will be seven years with options to extend to a total of 15 years.

Councillor Karen Shore, The Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Strategic Transport, said: “We are pleased to award our highways term maintenance contract to Colas Limited following a lengthy and detailed procurement process.

“Teams in our Transport and Highways directorate have been working hard to ensure the procurement process and the development of the overall contract for these key services was carried out thoroughly and effectively, taking into account factors that are influencing the market for these services at the current time.

“We would very much like to thank our current contractor, Ringway, for their hard work in Cheshire West and Chester since 2012, working alongside us to look after our highways assets and keep our residents and visitors safe.

“We are however looking forward to working with our new contractor Colas to deliver the best possible highways maintenance services for the borough.”

CEO at Colas, Faical Lahmamsi said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this seven-year contract by Cheshire West and Chester Council and are excited to be bringing our experience in delivering sustainable road solutions for them, and their communities.”