Kier, Wates and BAM named on £1.2bn framework

Forty-five contractors including Kier, Wates and BAM have been selected to head up a £1.2bn framework in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The winners, a mix of national and regional contractors, were selected from over 400 expressions of interest for the YORbuild framework.

Work already lined up to be procured under YORbuild includes the £25m Humberside Police HQ in Hull, a £17m new-build housing project in East Riding and a new college in Doncaster worth £6m.

The procurement of YORbuild began in December 2008. The selected 45 contractors were picked for four subregional frameworks, each with six bands, ranging from under £100,000 to over £10m.

Winners include Morgan Ashurst in the £100,000-500,000 band, Wilmott Dixon and Interserve in the £3.5m-£10m band and BAM, Kier, Wates, Allenbuild and GB Building Solutions for projects over £10m.

The framework includes several firms found guilty by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) inquiry in the bid-rigging scandal that rocked the industry in September.

YORbuild originally said it had included clauses in its contracts that could mean it blacklisting firms found guilty by the OFT. Despite opposition from the OFT, last month YORbuild confirmed it would be keeping the clauses to enact at a later date should the firms break the law in future.