Scrutinising Birmingham's £144m Highways Contract Extension with Kier

Birmingham's roads and pavements are the arteries of our community, and keeping them safe is one of the most fundamental duties of the local authority. This week, a major decision has been made regarding who will fix our potholes, maintain our streetlights, and clear our drains for the next two years.

What's happened

Birmingham City Council has agreed a two-year extension with Kier to continue maintaining the city's highways network. According to the official announcement, the Contract for maintaining Birmingham highways network extended agreement will run until July 2028, with an option for a further nine-month extension until April 2029. Kier has been delivering these services on an interim basis since April 2020.

This decision follows the collapse of the previous funding model. As reported in the Statement of Accounts 2022/23, the Department for Transport withdrew its funding arrangement for the city's Highways Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in late 2023. Consequently, the council has used a direct award procedure to grant this extension, which is valued at £120m excluding VAT, or £144m including VAT, according to industry reports in Kier handed £120m Birmingham highways extension.

What it means for Erdington and Pype Hayes

This contract is massive in scope. It covers more than 2,500km of road, 5,000km of footways, 846 structures, 94,000 street lighting columns, and 76,000 highway trees across the city. For residents in Erdington and Pype Hayes, this is the contract that dictates how quickly a dangerous pothole on your street is filled, whether the streetlights outside your home are repaired promptly to deter crime, and how well our local drains are cleared to prevent flooding during heavy rain.

Because this is a city-wide contract, the primary concern for our ward is resource allocation. With £144m being spent over the next two years, we need absolute certainty that peripheral areas like Erdington are not left at the back of the queue while city centre projects take priority. Poorly maintained pavements are a severe hazard for our elderly residents, and deteriorating road surfaces cause costly damage to local drivers' vehicles.

Where I stand

As your Reform UK councillor, my priority is ensuring that Erdington and Pype Hayes residents get value for every penny of their council tax. I recognise that the council had to act; we cannot simply let our roads crumble, and securing a contractor to maintain essential safety is non-negotiable.

The strongest counter-argument from the administration is that they had no choice but to make a direct award following the government's withdrawal of PFI funding, as a full competitive tender would have taken too long and risked a dangerous gap in service. I accept that the situation was forced upon them by the collapse of the previous funding model. However, a £144m direct award without the rigour of a standard competitive tendering process demands the highest possible level of scrutiny. We cannot write a blank cheque. We need iron-clad performance indicators, strict penalties for missed repair targets, and a transparent breakdown of how this money is being spent ward by ward.

Questions we're asking

As the Reform UK opposition, I am putting the following questions directly to the decision-maker on behalf of our residents to ensure accountability:

• To Cllr Rob Grant (Transport): Given the £144m (including VAT) value of this direct award extension running to July 2028, what specific performance penalties are written into the contract if Kier fails to meet repair deadlines for potholes and streetlights in Erdington and Pype Hayes?
• The Department for Transport withdrew PFI funding support in late 2023. Can the Cabinet Member detail exactly how the £120m (ex VAT) cost of this two-year extension is being funded from the council's current constrained budget, and what other transport projects have been paused to accommodate it?
• The contract includes an option to extend for a further nine months until April 2029. What exact performance metrics and value-for-money tests will be used to determine whether this extension is triggered, and will this decision be brought before the relevant scrutiny committee?
• With 2,500km of roads covered citywide, how is the council ensuring that wards like Erdington receive an equitable share of proactive maintenance, rather than resources being disproportionately concentrated in the city centre?

What happens next

The contract extension officially takes effect from August 2026 and will run until at least July 2028. During this period, the council must procure a long-term, permanent arrangement for the city's highways. My office will be closely monitoring Kier's performance in our ward, logging every reported pothole and broken streetlight to ensure the promised service levels are actually delivered on our streets.

Have your say

Your experiences on our local roads matter. I invite you to register on the site, leave a comment below with your thoughts on the state of our highways, and vote in our ward forum poll. If there is a specific road or pavement in Erdington or Pype Hayes that has been neglected, please contact my office so we can add it to our priority repair list and hold the contractors to account.

Source: Birmingham City Council