Highways England’s Smart Motorways Alliance

Highways England has announced plans to procure Smart Motorways through a ten year alliance arrangement, as part of a new business model expected to deliver £400m-£600m a year of work.

The proposed model, of the type operated in the water and rail industries, is a radical new plan for highways. Given the shared risk and reward and the limited access to dispute resolution procedures, it requires a very different mind-set to traditional procurement methods giving rise to different risks.

In this article, Will Buckby and Andrew Croft report on this new venture and explain the different steps required for this to be a successful project.

Beale & Company has significant experience advising on alliancing agreements in the water and rail industry and we await confirmation of Highways England’s approach to alliancing in the Autumn with interest.