Wins for local firms among new highways contracts

Herefordshire Council has announced which companies will take on much of the roads and public realm work in the county once it switches to a new approach at the start of June – with several local and regional firms on the list.

Road surfacing schemes will primarily fall to Tarmac Trading, which has carried out much of the county’s resurfacing work on an ad-hoc basis since the council opted to move away from its current all-encompassing deal with Balfour Beatty.

A further contract for surface dressing and so-called thin treatment works to roads goes to Eurovia Infrastructure of West Sussex, while Telent Technology Services of Stevenage picks up work on traffic signal improvement and maintenance.

A package of general civil engineering schemes worth between £500,000 and £3 million has gone jointly to Alun Griffiths (Contractors) of Abergavenny, Montel Civil Engineering of Worcester, Octavius Infrastructure of Cheshire, Fitzgerald Contractors of Birmingham and McPhillips (Wellington) of Telford.

A further lot worth less than £500,000 goes to Octavius Infrastructure, Cambrensis Civil Engineering of Abergavenny, Velta Construction of Pontypridd, Owen Pell of Hereford and the county’s future main public realm contractor, M Group Highways.

A lot of what are described as structures schemes, worth up to £1 million, goes to Velta, Owen Pell, McPhillips, Cambrensis and VolkerLaser of Hertfordshire.

And a package of tree surveys and inspections goes to Treework Services of London, UA-5 of Hampshire and AAT Tree Services and Consultancy of Lugwardine, Herefordshire, while tree works go to AAT, R F Gardiner of Stroud, and Chris Arnold Tree Surgery of Cheltenham.

A spokesperson for AAT said: “While we have worked on many large-scale projects across the UK, having the opportunity to contribute to our home county of Herefordshire is a fantastic chance for us to give back locally.”

The council is bringing in what it calls a mixed economy model approach for public realm services alongside its new main public realm contract from June 1, which will give it greater overall control.

The approach “provides the council with a straightforward way of awarding works on a value-for-money basis that may attract more local suppliers”, without having to procure project-by-project, it said.

Separately, the council has also commissioned specialist firm Fusion Media Fleet of Ross-on-Wye for new traffic signs and graphics on its vehicles ahead of the move to a more in-house public realm service.