Highways England awards £7 billion NEC4 ALC for smart motorways

NEC Users’ Group platinum member Highways England has awarded an NEC4 Alliance Contract (ALC) for delivering up to £7 billion of smart motorways over the next decade.

The government-owned company created a hybrid alliance in April 2020 with six partners to develop, design and construct England’s smart motorways programme for 10.5 years. The aim is to increase lane capacity on England’s 7000km strategic road network using roadside technology and converting hard shoulders to all-lane running.

Alliance partner roles

Costain Limited, Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Limited and a Bam Nuttall−Morgan Sindall joint venture have been appointed as on-site assembly partners, responsible for the on-site aspects of up to £5.95 billion of construction works.

WSP UK Limited and Jacobs UK Limited Partners have been appointed digitally enabled design partners, responsible for scheme design from initial concept to close-out, while Fluor Limited has been appointed production management partner, responsible for leading and coordinating the alliance partners. The production management and designs roles are worth up to £350 million each.

Bespoke work allocation

Work has just started, with a two-week initiation phase to establish how the alliance partners will best work together. Highways England said the alliance has a more detailed work allocation process than currently exists in option X26 of the ALC.

‘This bespoke drafting avoids the need for mini-competitions between partners while still complying with regulation 33 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and maintaining the ethos of a pure alliance model,’ said a spokesperson.