What’s this all about?
With 458 miles of pavements and 259 miles of roads to look after, we have a duty to maintain our streets in a safe condition. Major investment is needed in order to meet this requirement.
This includes upgrading or improving roads, pavements, street lights, street cleansing, signs, street furniture, trees, structures and drains.
We are in the process of securing a government grant of £267m in ‘PFI Credits’ to invest in the much needed work and on-going maintenance to the roads and pavements.
Why are we doing this?
Our annual planned maintenance programme is under way, with repairs to lengths or large sections of roads and footways to prevent further deterioration already taking place. This underlines our promise to invest into keeping roads and pavements safe and in good condition.
It is anticipated that the government will award the grant in November this year and we will immediately begin the procurement process early 2010.
What is the PFI?
PFI stands for Private Finance Initiative. This is a financial arrangement that provides ‘up front’ money for improvements needed now, where the payments can be spread over a longer time
We have successfully secured a government grant of £267m to invest in the much needed work and on-going maintenance to the roads and pavements. We provide some of the funding and the Department for Transport provides a grant known as ‘PFI credits’ subject to various conditions.
The main condition is that the council must enter into a long-term arrangement with a private sector provider which will carry out the required improvements and maintain them over the term of the contract (25 years in this case).
The private sector provider will finance the ‘up front’ investment required to tackle the backlog of repairs and improvement works.
As the customer it gives us greater bargaining power whilst continuing to keep ownership. Paying the money back in instalments means payments will depend on the work being carried out to our satisfaction.
Will my street look different?
The backlog of repairs to roads, pavements and other street scene features will be gradually eliminated – primarily during an intensive five-year period at the start of the project. Many areas will noticeably start looking more appealing and safer.
A key and ground-breaking feature of the project will mean that rather than just repairing roads and pavements - all related services such as street lighting, drains, signs, trees and grass verges will be repaired and updated at the same time.
We have already completed 19 of these schemes and about 100 more across the borough will be completed during the first five years of the contract.
What are the next stages?
We hope to get government approval in November. After this we will start looking to select a contractor.
This stage will involve a lot of complex work but we hope to have appointed the contract by June 2012 with work starting in December 2012.