From today, Coventry and Warwickshire will share the same highways contract, in a bid to save more taxpayer’s cash.
It’s hoped £10 million pounds will be shaved off the council’s roads bill through the new contract with Balfour Beatty.
It will be Warwickshire that use the company the most, with Coventry getting them to do the most complex of their projects, including bridge and safety barrier repairs and resurfacing sections of road covered in pot holes.
This deal comes on top of the £6 million pounds the city council has already put towards fixing pot holes and sorting out road signs over the next year.
Colin Knight, Assistant Director for Planning, Transport and Highways for Coventry, said: “It’s difficult to justify having several specialist teams in an area doing much the same thing. If we can work together with Warwickshire…we’re talking to Solihull as well, and have one team, same service, it’s going to be really cost effective.
“It’s very much about being able to stretch the money we’ve got to go as far as people so that we can continue the big push we’ve had to improve the quality of our roads.”
Balfor Beatty was the company responsible for the Hatfield rail disaster:
It was initially fined £10m but this was reduced on appeal to £7.5m. Criminal charges against four of its directors were also dropped.
