Balfour Beatty and Vinci JV secure largest package worth over £600m

Traffic on a motorway

Highways England has awarded £1.6bn worth of contracts to heavyweight contracting joint ventures to deliver its smart motoways programme, including 292 extra lane miles of road.

A Balfour Beatty and Vinci joint venture has secured the largest deal, worth over £600m, while a Kier and Carillion joint venture has won a £475m share, and a Costain and Galliford Try joint venture has secured the third batch, worth more than £300m.

The ‘smart motorway’ programme includes upgrades to increase capacity and reduce congestion, including converting hard shoulders into permanent running lanes, and installing electronic signs to manage traffic flow.

The Balfour Beatty-Vinci joint venture, split 60:40, will deliver upgrades to sections of the M5, M6 and M4. The first tranche of work - a £45.4m upgrade to the M5 - will start this autumn.

Kier and Carillion’s joint venture, split 50:50, has been allocated upgrade works on the M6, M20 and M23. Its first contract, to upgrade the M6 between junctions 16 and 19, worth £129.5m, will also begin this autumn.

The Costain and Galliford Try joint venture will deliver upgrades to various sections of the M1.