Longbridge Connectivity A38 Highways Improvements

Fitzgerald Contractors secured a major highway improvement contract to deliver the Longbridge Connectivity scheme on behalf of our long-standing client Birmingham City Council. The £4.3M contract had a number of key client objectives; to support economic growth in Longbridge including a reduction in both congestion, peak journey times/ delays through the area by improving the road network and increasing junction capacity on Longbridge Lane and at junctions on the A38. The works were delivered under our place on Birmingham City Council’s Highway Infrastructure Works Framework Lot 4 and were undertaken in a highly trafficked urban environment with key arterial routes and junctions, each of which had their own unique challenges.

Our works programme was created to balance the need to minimise disruption to residents, businesses and the travelling public whilst accelerating the overall construction programme. Fitzgerald’s Top 10 Risk Register highlighted that the main risks to both the construction programme and client budget were the significant volume of statutory utility diversion works (both planned and unforeseen), as well as traffic and pedestrian management requirements.

Prior to contract award Fitzgerald were employed by Birmingham City Council to look at the feasibility of the scheme under an Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) contract. This enabled our in-house team of planners, estimators and wider head office support team to review the design and programme, and to work collaboratively with the City Council to ensure that we had a robust programme and design moving forward. Furthermore, this provided enormous benefit as we moved into the delivery stage of the scheme.

The contract scope comprised of 7 individual Lot packages of highway improvements to upgrade various permanent and temporary roads along the A38 Bristol Road – a main arterial route south of Birmingham. Fitzgerald proposed to Birmingham City Council an innovative approach in developing the statutory diversions alongside the works programme and as part of the preconstruction ECI phase we carried out initial coordination /planning meetings with the various undertakers. We subsequently iteratively re-sequenced the programme and utilised our bespoke utility tracker document to keep all parties informed of the current status of the works.

This improved methodology reduced the original construction programme by 30 weeks (from 100 weeks to 70 weeks) and in the process it de-risked the contract and avoided any additional disruption on the scheme. Our team were able to realise cost savings of circa £150K and project administration costs. Furthermore, we are pleased to report that the scheme was the winner of an International Safety Council Merit Award for demonstrating a strong commitment to excellent health and safety management throughout the contract duration.