The Costain Group has won the contracts to work alongside Coventry City Council to build both the new £12.6million grant funded bridge deck at Junction 6 of the Ring Road and the new access bridge on the A444 to provide easier access in to the Jaguar Land Rover Engineering Centre and the Whitley Business Park.

Coventry City Council has been working with the Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum for Constructing Excellence (FORCE) to give local companies the chance to benefit from the developments by becoming sub-contractors for some of the work at each site.

Work on both the bridge deck and at Whitley will benefit from grants from the Regional Growth Fund – money which is available for improvements to support local job creation.

Cllr Lynnette Kelly, Cabinet Member for Business, Enterprise and Employment, said: “With these two major projects about to start, the extra value they can deliver for local businesses by allowing them to undertake some of the work is enormously important. We are very much aware that many local companies have the right skills and experience needed to do some of the work that needs undertaking.

“Although Costain cannot let all of their contracts to Coventry firms, we have been clear that we expect them to work with local companies wherever possible.

“Both of these projects provide excellent opportunities for small and medium sized businesses operating in the Coventry area to work with Costain as the principal contractor as well as providing opportunities for employment and apprentices.”

Linsey Luke, from the Federation of Small businesses, said:  “The FSB have been working with the Council for a number of years to develop a more streamlined procurement process for small firms, and we are, therefore, delighted that Coventry City Council has taken this step to ensure that the local supply chain benefit from the larger contracts they award.

“This is great news for our small businesses, particularly as we are due to see some large scale infrastructure developments in the city over the next few years. The FSB will continue to work with the Council as they roll out this initiative and we hope that many local businesses will benefit as a result.”

Dhiran Vagdia attended the event. He represents FORCE and is his own small business Vagdia and Holmes, Chartered Architects. He said: “At a time when the industry needs a sustained upturn in activity, working with larger organisations on local schemes is critical in restoring a balanced workload, which of course helps drive our local economy.  FORCE looks forward to the active involvement of their members in the Costain supply chain, now and in the future.”

Those local companies that have won some of the contracts will be informed in the next few weeks ahead of work commencing at Junction 6.