Birmingham City Council has awarded a two-year maintenance contract to Tarmac, to tide the authority over until its planned private-finance initiative deal starts. The £5.5M-a-year framework contract, running until the end of 2009, replaces a number of separate contracts, including carriageway surfacing and carriageway patching, but will be focused on routine maintenance work. Birmingham’s intention is for Tarmac’s deal to wind down towards the end of 2009/10, after the maintenance PFI service provider is appointed. But Paul O’Day, Birmingham’s network manager, said the authority had retained the option of extending Tarmac’s contract by one more year. The aim is for the £2.7bn PFI to start in April 2009, but there will be an estimated six-month mobilisation period for staff. O’Day said negotiations on the two bidders’ draft ‘best and final offer’ documents were proceeding well, and the authority expected the bids to be finalised by this spring, and the bidder appointed in autumn. The Tarmac contract would ‘ensure service continuity’, he said, and therefore, there was flexibility over Tarmac’s workload, to provide for a smooth handover. The deal is not expected to entail major maintenance schemes, coming as it does prior to a planned five-year, £300M resurfacing programme. Eddie Fellows, Birmingham’s assistant network manager, stressed that it also represented a ‘package approach’, replacing contracts for different work items such as high-friction surfacing and traffic management works. Birmingham was ‘keen to promote a joined-up approach to provide an industry-leading maintenance service,’ said Fellows. Tarmac is also a contractor in other Midlands authorities, including Coventry, Warwickshire, and Walsall.