Ringway Jacobs, Balfour Beatty Living Places and Colas have been selected to move to the next stage of the procurement process by East Sussex County Council.
The shortlist for the £730 million highways infrastructure services contract follows a call for expressions of interest which went through a rigorous evaluation process.
The selected bidders have now been invited to submit detailed tenders about how they would deliver highway maintenance, improvement schemes and a range of other highways services across East Sussex.
The new contract will replace the council’s current £300m seven-year contract with Costain and Jacobs (previously CH2M), signed in May 2016 and due to expire in May 2023, when East Sussex outsourced a number of its highway service functions.
The contract is likely to run for a maximum of 14 years – with an initial seven-year term and the option to extend for an additional seven-year period subject to satisfactory performance
The deadline for receipt of the detailed tenders is March 2022, with the announcement of the preferred tenderer to be made in September 2022.