£9bn NEC4 Roads Awards

Highways England has awarded nearly £9 billion of NEC4-based framework contracts for delivery of major motorway and A-road projects in England. Following a procurement process started in January last year, six-year framework agreements were signed with 13 contractors in November last year covering eight regional lots worth a total of £8.7 billion.

All projects in the frameworks, most of which will be for conventional road widening and junction improvements, will be carried out under the NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract Option C (target contract with activity schedule).

Known as the ‘regional delivery partnership’, the new framework agreements replace the £5 billion NEC3-based ‘collaborative delivery framework’ launched in November 2014. NEC Users’ Group gold members Balfour Beatty, Bam Nuttall, Costain, Galliford Try and Skanska all picked up two of the five largest lots, each of which is shared with one or two other partners. Other successful Users’ Group members included Farrans Construction, Geoffrey Osborne and Graham Construction.