French civil engineering group secures 95 Carillion motorway jobs on M40
The jobs of around 95 Carillion highways workers have been saved by a French group taking over its maintenance contract on the M40 Motorway.
Civil engineering group Egis has acquired the motorway operations and maintenance contract in a deal with the Official Receiver and PwC, the special managers of the Carillion liquidation.
Egis says it expects the transaction to secure the jobs of around 95 former Carillion employees.
They join more than 11,000 staff from the collapsed Wolverhampton-based construction and services group who have found jobs with new firms taking over hundreds of Carillion contracts with the private and public sector.
But 2,200 have lost their jobs in the three months since Carillion plunged into compulsory liquidation, including more than half the workforce at the company's headquarters in Wolverhampton city centre.
The latest deal sees Egis return to working on the M40 – the main motorway linking Birmingham and the West Midlands to Greater London – through its newly created Egis Road Operation M40 company. It was involved in the initial startup of the M40 operations and maintenance contract between 1997 and 2007.
It has taken over DBFO-30, a Design Build Finance and Operate contract awarded to UK Highways M40 which covers the majority of the M40 motorway between junction 1A and junction 15.
Junction 1A connects the motorway to the M25 London Orbital and Junction 15 intersects with the A46 near Warwick. The operational and maintenance project consists of 76 miles of three lane motorway, with over 300 structures such as overhead gantries. The 30-year contract runs until January 2027.
The work involves network management, safety inspections, regular maintenance, accident and emergency response and winter maintenance. A company spokesman said: " Egis looks forward to working very closely and collaboratively with UK Highways M40 Ltd, Highways England, the emergency services and other stakeholders."
Egis is already involved in motorway and national road maintenance in the Republic of Ireland and worldwide works on nearly 2,000 miles of road and 36 miles of tunnels used by more than 2.5 million customers in more than 100 countries.
