Feature Story

City on the go

Birmingham offers a blueprint for highway management projects, says City Council Cabinet Member for Transport, Environment and Regeneration Timothy Huxtable.

As England's second city, Birmingham is home to one of the most important road networks in the UK, providing vital transport links between some of the country's largest industrial and metropolitan hubs. It also boasts one of the busiest major motorway networks, carrying around three million vehicles each day. Birmingham has the most accessible city centre in the UK of any outside of London and an annual budget of over £3.5bn – the largest in Europe.

With one million people living and 500,000 people working in the city, it is pivotal to Birmingham's economic prosperity that the highway network is both improved and maintained.

In March 2010 The Department of Transport (DfT) awarded more than £600m in PFI credits to Birmingham City Council under a contract that will see the implementation of vital improvements and maintenance to local roads over 25 years. The Birmingham Highways Maintenance and Management Service is the largest and most complex local government highways maintenance and management PFI in the UK.

What does the highway maintenance contract involve?
From 7th June 2010, Amey, as service provider, has been working in partnership with Birmingham City Council to maintain and manage the city's 2,500km of highway network.

There will be significant investment in the first five years (some £350m) including the repair and rehabilitation of roads and maintenance of footways, bridges, street lighting and traffic signals as well as the upkeep of street scenery such as safety barriers, seats and trees. This period will be followed by continued investment to ensure that the network remains in a fair and reasonable condition across the whole city.

The strengths of the project lie in partnership and collaborative working, delivering the benefits of public service ethos together with the access to expertise and additional capacity that working with a private sector partner brings.

The partnership aims to sustainably manage the city's highway infrastructure asset, while enabling the city to reap other benefits such as reducing its carbon footprint and creating job opportunities for local people. It will benefit all users, help improve road safety and reduce crime and the fear of crime.
The contract assists in delivering the following key council strategies and objectives:
• Birmingham 2026 – the vision to make Birmingham the best place to live, learn, work and visit;
• The 'Big City Plan' – an ambitious city-wide development project aiming to create a world-class city centre.

Innovation in recruitment
Tackling worklessness is a key issue for Birmingham City Council, with unemployment in Birmingham standing at 11.8% – more than twice the national rate. This 25 year deal presented a unique opportunity to get long-term unemployed people back into sustainable employment.

Birmingham City Council, Amey and Jobcentre Plus signed an employment charter as a commitment to train and recruit local people to the highways service.

As a result of this charter and the partnership approach to getting people back to work:
• 72 people have come through the partnerships pathway to gain jobs with Amey;
• 18 apprentices have been given permanent jobs;
• three graduates have been employed.

Reduction in costs and pollution
Environmental issues are an important concern in the implementation of the Birmingham Highways Maintenance and Management Service. This can be demonstrated by:
• Green fleet – the use of GPS in vehicles, resulting in a 20% reduction in fuel use, saving around 180 tonnes of CO2 per year and cost-savings of approximately £100,000;
• Green materials – involving the use of 30,000 tonnes of an innovative cold-lay recycled material within pavement reconstruction works. This equates to savings of 450 tonnes of CO2 each year compared to the use of traditional materials, as well as cutting down on significant amounts of material being taken to landfill;
• Green lights – the replacement of more than 95,000 street lights is under way with remotely controlled, state-of-the-art light emitting diode (LED) technology that will cut carbon emissions, improve safety and reduce costs. These new lights are reducing emissions by up to 50% and on some streets, energy consumption is being reduced by up to 60%.

How is the work being financed?
Following approval of a detailed business case promoting an asset management approach, the DfT awarded Birmingham £625m of PFI credits; this equates to an annual grant of £50m or £1.25bn over the contract life. Birmingham's commitment to the project requires guaranteed funding for the balance of the £2.7bn, 25 year project. This combined DfT grant and Birmingham funding stream enables a monthly unitary charge payment to be made to Amey. In exchange for this single payment, Amey provides the full range of maintenance and management services identified within the contract, and the group is also financing the investment stage of the project with in excess of £300m of bank debt.

The nature of the contract means that anybody either working on or using the highway network is affected by the services provided. Amey has the obligation to coordinate the activity of all street works promoters such as public utilities and private developers. The city council as an organisation needs to work closely with Amey in relation to housing developments and other highway related activity such as street cleansing and horticultural maintenance.

'The partnership aims to sustainably manage the city's highway infrastructure asset, while enabling the city to reap other benefits such as reducing its carbon footprint and creating job opportunities for local people.'

Traffic and travel information is jointly managed by Amey and the city council, with a major West Midlands Urban Traffic Management project currently in development.

Improvements at a local level?
Birmingham is composed of 40 wards, grouped into 10 constituencies. Performance standards for the condition of the network are set at constituency level. All constituencies have to be at the same overall average standard of highway condition, irrespective of starting point, by the end of the first five year core investment period.

Local consultation takes place and can influence one, two and five year programmes. Constituencies may enhance the specification of service delivery (at extra cost). Local people have the chance to help determine priorities and influence choice of materials.

Working with local suppliers
Local SMEs and suppliers have been used to help deliver the contract. Local suppliers are becoming long-term partners, allowing them to make more informed investment decisions based on guaranteed future work:
• 90% of suppliers engaged on the highways service have operations in the West Midlands;
• 88% of the contract annual spend is with these locally based companies.

The partnership has proactively engaged with suppliers who have a strong local presence to deliver the requirements of the highways service.

Councillor Timothy Huxtable
Cabinet Member for Transport
Environment and Regeneration, Birmingham City Council