Durham County Council civil engineering alliance

Balfour Beatty Regional Civil Engineering (BBRCE) and its joint venture partners awarded two-year extension to Durham County Council's Strategic Alliance.

BBRCE and its joint venture partners, including Cumbria Industrials, Ringway Highway Services and design partners Capita Symonds and Jacobs Engineering, has been awarded a two-year extension to the Durham County Council's Strategic Alliance for Civil Engineering Works and Services contract.

The joint venture commenced in 2002 and has delivered over GBP30 million worth of work to- date, including the Durham City Park and Ride Scheme and the current A68 West Auckland Bypass.

The Strategic Alliance partnership is a fresh outlook on procurement by the Council who implemented the Government's 'Rethinking Construction Programme' initiative under which the construction industry, its client and the government work together to improve UK construction performance.

The Balfour Beatty led joint venture has demonstrated improvements being made in the areas of project planning and delivery, systems, value engineering, risk management, performance measurement and benchmarking.

Key performance indicators show an overall improvement in performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of the Alliance approach.

Also, a recent report by the Council stated that the Strategic Alliance model has shown itself as the most appropriate procurement approach for its Civil Engineering Services.

The report recommended that the Council should take up the option of the two-year extension.

Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Regional Managing Director, Neil Barnes commenting today said: "We are very pleased to have been awarded this extension to our existing contract by Durham County Council and look forward to continuing our excellent working relationship with the council and our joint venture partners".

Durham County Council's Corporate Director, John Richardson commenting today said: "The Council has made the decision to extend the Alliance based upon a successful and proven track record of value for money.

We believe the Alliance continues to be at the cutting edge of best practice construction procurement and this has been recognised by Constructing Excellence acknowledging the Alliance as a national demonstration project.

"We look forward to continuing to work with our partners during the two year extension period when we will be identifying and introducing further improvements to the benefit of all parties.".

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