Amey anger as council claims it is owed £60m

ROAD contractor Amey has been accused of refusing a court order to pay £60 million back to Birmingham City Council.

But the firm has rebuffed the claim, hitting back saying the council has not paid them a single penny this year while they have carried on maintaining the roads.

The fresh row is the latest twist in the long-running dispute which dates back to 2014.

Kevin Hicks, the council’s assistant director for highways and infrastructure, told the council’s audit committee: “We have obviously got a problem here. We have got a dispute with Amey. We are working with everybody involved to try and find a resolution that achieves the delivery that we expected, and require from the contract.”

Amey and the council embarked on a 25-year private finance initiative contract in June 2010 worth £2.7 billion.

But problems emerged in 2014 when council officials began to question whether repairs on certain roads had been ignored.

It transpired that Amey had changed the way it compiled its list of roads and pavements.

The case had seemingly culminated in February this year when the Court of Appeal ruled in the council’s favour, stating the firm had come up with an ‘ingenious pretation of its contract’.

The decision, which overturned a previous High Court judgement in Amey’s favour, stated the council was entitled to recover £54.95m worth of repayments (now worth £60m including interest) dating back to May 2013, whilst future monthly payments to the firm were subsequently slashed by £1.3m.

A report to the audit committee stated that Amey had ‘refused’ to pay the money and had ‘declined’ another court demand to ‘re-calculate’ the condition of the roads and provide programmes of work to fix them.

It went on to say that Amey ‘seek to confuse what is required’, adding that whilst they had carried out work programmes they ‘contain no meaningful attempt to provide the work that they are obliged to perform’.

The report concluded that the council had subsequently withheld £42m in payments to Amey up to and including June. inter-

Mr Hicks elaborated on the dispute saying it centred around exactly what roads the money had been spent on and the nature of the repairs.

He said negotiations were ongoing with Amey but added that the council was doing its part by holding the firm to account.

The committee went into a private session to discuss the matter in more detail, but not before Cllr Muhammad Afzal branded the contractor a ‘disgrace’.

Amey Birmingham Highways Ltd (ABHL) is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) contracted by the council to maintain the roads.

Amey Local Government (ALG), a division of Amey Plc, is subcontracted by Amey Birmingham Highways.

In response a spokesman said: “Amey strongly refutes the claims put forward in this paper (council audit report) and notes that it contains a number of material errors and inaccuracies. Despite the chal- lenging circumstances, Amey LG Ltd (Amey LG) continues to deliver a high-quality service in Birmingham, while we try to engage with all of the project stakeholders to resolve this long-standing and complex dispute.”

The firm went on to stress that they had ploughed in £320m of capital expenditure investment in the first five years of the contract.

They stated Amey LG ‘does not owe’ Amey Highways Limited £55m plus interest, adding that their ‘employees continue to work hard and deliver the services for the city’ despite having ‘not been paid anything in 2018’.

A further statement said: “In 2010 Amey mobilised a 25-year highways contract with Birmingham City Council.

“Since then, we have delivered significant investment in the city’s roads, which has seen considerable improvements to the network.

“We have completed a comprehensive programme of investment as part of a major infrastructure initiative, and it is one of the most capital intensive projects in Europe.

“We have resurfaced 500 miles of carriageway – over one-third of Birmingham’s roads – and over 400 miles of pedestrian footway.

“We’ve also replaced 42,000 street lights and over half of the city’s traffic signal systems.”

The council has since confirmed it stands by the report to the audit committee.

We have obviously got a problem here. We are working with everybody involved to try and find a resolution Kevin Hicks, pictured