Highways England doles out contracts to Balfour, Costain, Galliford Try, Kier

UK-based construction groups Balfour Beatty, Costain, Galliford Try and Kier have won sizeable contracts from Highways England.

Balfour, the FTSE 250 resident, secured its place on two lots - B6 in the South East and B8 in the North - with a potential combined value of £3.1bn and an initial value of £425m.

The regional six-year framework will see contractors work with Highways England as partners responsible for designing and constructing motorway and major A-road projects across England. Future packages of work over the deal framework will be awarded based on performance.

Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn, said: "Balfour Beatty's deep domain knowledge and unique capability in complex road construction, acquired through many years' of successful projects for Highways England, make us ideally positioned to support delivery of the UK's critical national infrastructure to the highest standard."

Costain, meanwhile, revealed it had been appointed as delivery integration partner in the North and East regions - covering the full lifecycle of the projects including development, design and complex delivery.

Costain expects the contract to be worth in excess of £1.5bn throughout the life of the framework.

Infrastructure and services firm Kier will receive a total of roughly £2bn as part of the six-year deal fro Band B projects across the north-west, northeast, Yorkshire and Humberside, primarily working on the detailed design and construction of the A585 Windy Harbour to Skippool and the A5036 Port of Liverpool tranche 1 schemes, while housebuilder Galliford Try also signed on for two Band B schemes valued at £800m - the dualling of the A303 between Sparkford and Ilchester in Somerset and improvements to the A47 in Norfolk.

While still awaiting an announcement from Highways England, broker Liberum said it understood that England "has been split into perhaps six regions, with each Constructor limited to two wins. The work principally relates to Capital Works. It will not result in any estimate change but it clearly underpins outer year forecasts."