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Highways England, a government-owned company with responsibility for the operation, maintenance and improvement of the motorways and trunk roads in the country, has issued two contract notices for two Private Finance 2 (PF2) road improvement and tunnel projects, totaling £2.8 billion (US$3.8 billion).

Highways England is seeking financial and insurance advisers to assist in the procurement process of the A303 Stonehenge road and the Lower Thames Crossing. 

The A303 is a 13 kilometre route, between Amesbury and Berwick Down in Wiltshire, includes a tunnel inside the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites World Heritage Site (WHS) past the Stones and a much-needed bypass to the north of Winterbourne Stoke. The UK's HM Treasury adopted a privately-financed design, build, finance and maintain (DBFM) approach to funding this scheme. 

The estimated value of the procurement (excl VAT) is in the range between £10 and 13 million and is expected to be for up to 6 years duration.

As we reported last week, the Secretary of State for Transport announced the preferred route for the project. Following the announcement of the preferred route, the project will enter the Development phase, progressing through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process​. The government also revealed the total estimated cost of the route has risen from £1.4 billion (US$1.86 billion) to £1.6 billion (US$2.12 billion).

The Lower Thames Crossing is a significant road improvement project providing a new bored tunnel crossing under the River Thames east of Gravesend and Tilbury and new link roads connecting to the M25 north of the river between Junctions 29 and 30 and to the A2 south of the river east of Gravesend.

The link roads element of the project is expected to be procured using a PF2 (Design, Build, Finance and Maintain) contract, requiring privately financed capital expenditure of around £1.5 billion (US$2 billion). The project is planned to shortly enter the Development phase, progressing through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process and the procurement of a DBFM contract.

The estimated value of the procurement (excl VAT) is in the range between 12.8 and 17 million and is expected to be for 6 years duration.

Bids to provide financial advisory services for both project must be submitted by 13 October. Further information is available in the following links:

• Financial and insurance services for A303 
• Financial and insurance services for Lower Thames Crossing