Trio of firms picked for Manchester highways

The council has appointed Manchester-based civil engineers Rosgal and J Hopkins Contractors alongside Liverpool-based Dowhigh to a £6m framework to maintain and construct roads.

The firms will support Manchester City Council’s in-house highways team and will be called upon to supplement the council’s resources as required. 

Rosgal, founded in 1999, is based on Sandfold Lane in Levenshulme, while J Hopkins, which has been trading since the 1970s, has its headquarters at Trafford Park.

Dowhigh, based on Park Lane West in Bootle, was founded in 1975.

In total, 12 firms expressed an interest in being appointed to the two-year framework after the council began the procurement process in September. 

There are several high-profile highways projects in the pipeline for Manchester, including the permanent pedestrianisation of Deansgate, which is due to complete by the end of this year according to Manchester’s 20-year transport strategy. 

In addition, the £4m city centre ‘Triangle’ vision, which will see the creation of improved cycling and walking links between Manchester’s three major train stations – Deansgate, Piccadilly and Victoria – and between the main bus hubs at Piccadilly, Shudehill and the coach station, was one of two schemes earmarked to benefit from the award of £5.5m from the Government’s Active Travel Fund. 

The other project in line to benefit from the Whitehall funding is the £1.5m Wythenshawe cycle-walk scheme. The project aims to improve cycling links between Wythenshawe town centre, Wythenshawe Hospital and Manchester city centre. 

Your Comments

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The roads and pavements in Manchester are some of the worst in the developed world! It really is shocking.

By Observer

Why in Manchester are they obsessed with those awful wide forms to sit on? Is this another pedestrianised nightmare in the making to match Market street and St. Anne’s Square.

By Elephant

That’s strange. The contractors that have been engaged have been undertaking works for MCC for some time. Strangely enough, there are a number of ex-senior MCC employees engaged by these companies. Would be interesting to see who undertook the reviews of submitted tenders and have an external audit of this tender.

By In the know

Manchester is a third world place with such a huge difference between poor and wealthy that it’s shocking!

By Engineer

@Elephant – What’s wrong with St Anne’s Square?

By Aaron

Sorting Hyde Road out for bottlenecks and congestion would be a start for the council road improvements. We don’t have trams, trains or decent bus routes in east Manchester.

By Simon Smith

I am all for the pedestrianisation of Deansgate but unfortunately MCC will be incapable of keeping it clean, free from litter and maintained.

By Monty

Why not just have Deansgate pedestrianised on evenings and weekends. Buses and other transport need to use Deansgate to get from one end of the city centre to the other.

By Slice

@Slice, the question should be why allow vehicles to access Deansgate during the day? There may be a valid answer to your suggestion but the priority in towns and cities should be pedestrians and cyclists. We should be seeking justification for vehicle access.

By Anonymous

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