27/10/2003

£2bn PFI scheme to tackle Birmingham's transport backlog

The government has given the go-ahead for a £2 billion private investment to be made available to the Birmingham Highway Management Service scheme.

The Department for Transport will support this scheme by providing Private Finance Initiative credits to Birmingham City Council. The new money will be used to improve the condition of Birmingham's 2,488 kilometres of road network.

Birmingham has a total of 197 carriageway kilometres of principal roads, 237 carriageway kilometres of other classified roads and 2,054 carriageway kilometres of unclassified roads. Recent technical studies indicated that 15% of the City Council's principal roads are in a critical condition.

Improvements will also be made to the street lighting service. Some 81% of the City's 85,000 street lighting units will be over 30 years or older within the next five years. The scheme will involve the total replacement of the street lighting stock over the course of the contract with 58,000 of the oldest lighting columns being replaced within the first five years. An additional 34,000 lighting columns will also be installed over the course of the 25-year contract increasing the city's lighting stock to 119,000 and improving lighting standards.

An objective of the government's 10 Year Plan is to tackle the maintenance backlog in local roads.

(gmcg)

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