Colas, part of the French civil engineering giant Colas Group, has been shortlisted to provide highway maintenance and infrastructure services for East Sussex from 2023.
Colas join Ringway Jacobs, and Balfour Beatty Living Places to move to the next stage of the procurement process by East Sussex County Council (ESCC).
The shortlist for the £730 million Highways Infrastructure Services contract follows a call for expressions of interest which, according to ESCC, went through a ‘rigorous evaluation process.’
The selected bidders have now been invited to submit detailed tenders about how they would deliver highway maintenance, improvement schemes, and a range of other highways services across East Sussex.
The new contract will replace the council’s current £300 million seven-year contract with Costain and Jacobs (formerly CH2M), signed in May 2016 and due to expire in May 2023.
The contract is likely to run for a maximum of 14 years, with an initial seven-year term and the option to extend for an additional seven-year period subject to satisfactory performance.
The deadline for receipt of the detailed tenders is March 2022, with the announcement of the preferred tenderer to be made in September 2022.
Image Credits: Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash .
So we have ‘taken back control’ have we? It is interesting to note that despite this country turning its back on Europe (a very ill-advised move in my opinion) we are still so willing to sell large parts of our infrastructure, utilities and other businesses to those very same Europeans.
Many years ago Colas did a surface tarmac from the Kent/Sussex border to just just short of the bend at the Stocks (water tower) Wittersham. In my opinion it has proved to be the most durable stretch of tarmac that I have seen laid in recent decades. I believe it was described as cold tar and was only a about two inches thick. The road is narrow and has always been curved. Subsequently the Council had to deal with a badger set by the border which has left a hump and on the hill a water main has been renewed and an underground electricity cable on the side of the road has caused deterioration , but the Colas work has stood the test of time. It was done in just over a day with the minimum of fuss. As somebody who has been around for many years, I have seen some horrific jobs done in recent years that have not lasted, so I believe credit should be given to Colas.
Let’s not re-fight 2016, but worth pointing out, it’s consortium: two UK firms, one European. Not much different to buying Prosecco from Aldi, is it? And the chaps digging the holes are unlikely to be whistling La Marseillais…
Your so right GH, sadly the bitterness of brexit will never go away with some, even though half of our big companies are now in foreign hands.
When we were in the EU, they deemed that any contract over £100k needed to go out to competitive tender to any company within the union. Level playing field as they say, good business and companies that can meet a specification unlike the government wasting 13 billion on useless PPE.