Amey is welcoming nearly 200 colleagues as they embark on their first day managing and maintaining the Area 10 network.
In October 2018, Amey was selected as the Highways maintenance and response contractor for Area 10 in a 15-year contract worth £325million for Highways England. This key network serves the North West of England, connecting the cities of Manchester, Liverpool and the surrounding areas.
Today (1 April) marks the first day that Amey begins to provide all routine and cyclic maintenance on the trunk road and motorway network around Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
Amey has been working with the teams throughout a six-month mobilisation period to ensure a seamless transition. Responsible for incident response, defect rectification and severe weather delivery, the teams will oversee traffic management during incidents and the operation of the five main depots in the region as well as seven winter-only depots.
James Haluch, Managing Director of Amey, said: “We were delighted to have been awarded this contract by Highways England in October last year. After a six-month mobilisation period we are ready to work together, to listen and learn from our clients and customers to ensure that service delivery and collaboration are at the heart of our approach.
“I’m keen that we learn from our new Area 10 colleagues and embed the principles of Zero Code – our health and safety behaviours to keep our people and our supply chain from harm. I’m also keen to share with our new colleagues more information about Vision 2030 which is a simple philosophy – to have no one working on or by a live carriageway by 2030. Behind this vision we’ve outlined a strategy that is built on the foundations of capitalising on technological advances to improve safety, industry collaboration and leadership in driving our vision forward. This is an exciting time for our business and I look forward to seeing the successes this contract brings.”
Highways England’s executive director of operations, Nick Harris, said: “We recognise that how we maintain our roads and respond to incidents are extremely important issues for drivers. By working more closely with our supply chain colleagues who carry out these activities, we will be able to work more effectively, identify innovative ways of working and provide the best possible quality of service to our customers.
“We’re committed to driving improvement and strengthening our regional expertise. We are delighted to welcome Amey to our North West Asset Delivery supply chain community.
As part of the contract there will be a greater focus on in-sourcing services, including winter maintenance which will be self-delivered. To deliver the service Amey have already begun a recruitment programme that will see up to 45 new employees from the North West to join the present team across a variety of roles.