Kent County Council has announced a six-strong shortlist for the ten year deal.

But the six shortlisted do not include the current contractor Ringway, which had tendered to renew its role.

The companies in the race to maintain more than 5,000 miles of road are Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Colas, Enterprise and May Gurney.

The county council will now conduct talks with each of the companies.

Highways director John Burr said: “Existing partner Ringway have not been short-listed for the next stages of procurement.

“Discussions will be held with them to ensure that we continue to work together to provide the best highway service to the residents of Kent.

“We have achieved much together over the last few years and Kent will continue to work closely with Ringway staff to ensure a smooth transition to the new contract.”

Folkestone West Liberal Democrat County Councillor Tim Prater said “It is right that this contract was put out to tender – the Liberal Democrats have been arguing that this should be done for ages.

“It’s good to see progress on short-listing new contractors, and the next step of the process should be about agreeing a deal which gets the best possible value for money for Kent.

“We need to see more and better maintenance on our local roads, at the lowest possible cost to Kent taxpayers. Working smarter, with a well negotiated contract, Kent should be able to achieve this.

“There has to be flexibility built in to the new contract to allow local contractors to be used for specific local projects: by cutting the red tape and making it easier to bid for road maintenance work, Kent could see costs of repairs cut radically by using local small businesses, with that money then being spent locally.”

The new contract will be awarded in May 2011 and will run for up to 10 years.